There's nothing weird about, you just don't understand. It's not an IDE cable inside, it's 50-conductor SCSI, looks like a wide IDE. AFIK, there was never a SCSI to IDE adapter. The CDROM is SCSI. They used to have SCSI ISA & PCI adapter cards. Adaptec was the major manufacturer. Some had 50-pin Centronics on the back. Study up on SCSI & then come back.