I decided to attempt to hook up the following:
- C128D with 1571 (Device ID 8)
- MSD SD-2 (9)
- RAMLink (16 - its default ID)
- CMD HD (12 - its default ID)
- and 1581 (10)
But for some reason, the 1581 at ID 10 wouldn’t work. It would hang on any kind of disk read. Every. Time.
I then began to ponder if the order in which things were attached in the chain mattered. I also tried with a different 1581 and got the same results.
As it goes, a lot of plugging and unplugging commenced. When I removed the RAMLink and CMD HD from the chain, voila! Everything was fine. And then, I figured it out. This was my first experience ever using a CMD parallel cable, and I wasn’t sure how the serial chain would work.
In order to get this all working I had to do it like this:
The bottom line is I couldn't attach any serial devices to the back of the CMD HD since it was being connected to the computer via parallel cable. It was essentially it's own orphaned culdesac. If I tried to attach a serial device to the back of the HD (it has 2 ports) those devices would get very confused. As long as I chained them up separately all on their own IEC-only lines it worked perfectly.
That does make me wonder if you can have more than one CMD HD HDD attached via parallel, and if so, how? That being said I would never need this - my HD is a ridiculous 2GB drive! It was more just a curiosity of mine trying to figure out how it might come together in a theoretical puzzle.
(In this current setup I can also easily swap the 8/9 IDs between the C128D and MSD SD-2, as the MSD-SD-2 software often wants to be on ID 8 .)