> > > not quite what you're looking for, but floppy drive cables provide a
> > cheap & easy way to get from board traces to ribbon cable. can also
> > work as an sd card socket
> > >
> >
> > I think the OP is asking about Card Guides. These are slotted guides
> > that are mounted to a backplane or the rear of a card cage that guides
> > a PCB card properly into the receptacle. Search www.mouser.com,
> > www.digikey.com, www.jameco.com, etc. for "card guide" and you should
> > turn up something useable.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Dave M
> >
> > No, I do not mean card guides as in the simple pieces of plastic that
> > guide a card in to it's connector.
As always when trying to do something unusual, the question to ask is why
no-one else is doing that (and it's not an easy question to ask). Unusual
tends to mean 'bad idea' or 'we tried that and it was crap'.
I've never see anyone do top & bottom connectors, just thinking about it
it's likely to be a PITA. From the comments they do exist, but more trouble
then they're worth. If it's from a lack of space you can get high density
connectors to go on the back of the card.
Hot swap is easier to do, look at how USB has the data pins shorter than the
power pins. Some backplane connectors do that to.
Tony