[Xrati]

Narf, think of the cable as a sort of splitter. You had to desiginate "master" and "slave" drives when using those cables. So one end went into the mobo and the other two went into the drives.

Old mobos had two types. The standard or desktop had one IDE floppy and one IDE controller and the "tower" had an enhanced IDE (not sure about the name) which gave you a floppy and two HD IDE connectors. With the standard you could hook up one floppy and one HD or two using the splitter.
The enhanced wouls allow you a floppy and up to 4 HD's.