system. The remaining connector(s) plug into storage devices, most commonly hard disk drives or optical drives. Each connector has 39 physical pins arranged into two rows, with a gap or key at pin 20. Earlier connectors may not have that gap, with all 40 pins available. Thus, later cables with the gap filled in are incompatible with earlier connectors, although earlier cables are compatible with later connectors. Round parallel ATA cables (as opposed to ribbon cables) were eventually made available for 'case modders' for cosmetic reasons, as well as claims of improved computer cooling and were easier to handle; however, only ribbon cables are supported by the ATA specifications. Pin 20 In the ATA standard, pin 20 is defined as a mechanical key and is not used. This pin's socket on the female connector is often obstructed, requiring pin 20 to be omitted from the male cable or drive connector; it is thus impossible to plug it in the wrong way round. However, some flash memory drives can use pin 20 as VCC_in to power the drive without requiring a special power cable; this feature can only be used if the equipment supports this use of pin 20. Pin 28 Pin 28 of the gray (slave/middle) connector of an 80-conductor cable is not attached to any conductor of the cable. It is attached normally on the black (master drive end) and blue (motherboard end) connectors. This enables cable select functionality. Pin 34 Pin 34 is connected to ground inside the blue connector of an 80-conductor cable but not attached to any conductor of the cable, allowing for detection of such a cable. It is attached normally on the gray and black connectors. 44-pin variant A 44-pin variant PATA connector is used for 2.5 inch drives inside laptops. The pins are closer together and the connector is physically smaller than the 40-pin connector. The extra pins carry power. 80-conductor variant ATA's cables have had 40 conductors for most of its history (44 conductors for the smaller form-factor version used for 2.5" drives—the extra four for power), but an 80-conductor version appeared with the introduction of the UDMA/66 mode. All of the additional conductors in the new cable are grounds, interleaved with the signal conductors to reduce the effects of capacitive coupling between neighboring signal conductors, reducing crosstalk. Capacitive coupling is more of a problem at higher transfer rates, and this change