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Hardware Documentation
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> ATA Device Software Guide
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This document primarily describes the capabilities of ATA Manager 3.0 and later. However, an attempt is made at providing information that is useful with regard to earlier version of the ATA Manager. This section provides a brief review of the changes to the ATA Manager since version 1.0.
You may get different responses to a given function based on the version of the ATA Manager parameter block (ataPBVers) supported by the machine you are running on. Refer to the individual functions for the possible differences in values returned for a given version of the ATA Manager.
Significant major features were added to ATA Manager version 2.0. The feature enhancements are
Several new functions were added and existing functions were expanded to support the feature enhancements introduced in ATA Manager 2.0. The following new functions were added
The following functions were expanded to support the new features in ATA Manager version 2.0
The major feature that was added to ATA Manager version 3.0 was support for DMA I/O operations to ATA and ATAPI devices. No new functions were added to the ATA Manager version 3.0 interface, however many functions were modified to accept or report DMA-specific information.
The following functions were expanded for ATA Manager version 3.0
The major change from ATA Manager version 3.0 to ATA Manager 3.1 was the addition of bus-specific transfer timing information to the ATA_BusInquiry function, rather than general system timing information through the ATA_MgrInquiry function. No additional new functions were added to the interface.
ATA Manager version 4.0 is a PowerPC native redesign of ATA Manager 3.1. It was introduced in the PowerBook 3400 computer and supports all new Macintosh computers the incorporate ATA devices in the system design. The API for ATA Manager version 4.0 is a superset of the ATA Manager version 3.1 API and allows older ATA and ATAPI disk drivers to function correctly. Some of the fields in the ATA_GetDevConfig and ATA_SetDevConfig functions became obsolete starting with ATA Manager 4.0, because the services are handled elsewhere in the Macintosh OS software.
In addition to being PowerPC native, ATA Manager 4.0 also introduced the notion of the ATA Interface Module or AIM. The AIM is a hardware abstraction layer similar to the SIM (SCSI Interface Module) for SCSI Manager 4.3. The AIM includes all of the required code to communicate with the underlying ATA bus controller on a Macintosh logic board or expansion card, which allows the ATA Manager to remain abstracted from the details of controlling the ATA bus directly.
The programing interface for the AIM is not defined in this document. Developers interested in learning more about writing an AIM should contact Apple Developer Support at devsupport@apple.com.
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