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- June 12, 1989
-
- The CAM (Common Access Method) Committee meetings of May 8-9, were hosted by
- Ballard Synergy in Cupertino. The following attendees were present:
-
- M. Aarons EMULEX D. O'Shea FUTURE DOMAIN
- D. Allan ENDL R. Perry RHETOREX
- J. Armstrong NCR J. Polonsky SMS
- C. Ballard BALLARD SYNERGY T. Ram NETFRAME SYSTEMS
- S. Betts NCR T. Reichert INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS
- P. Boulay LMS OSD M. Robinson SEAGATE
- F. Burgess SEAGATE L. Robinson STORAGE DIMENSIONS
- D. Bursky ELECTRONIC DESIGN T. Rossbottom TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
- J. Chen BUSTEK L. Sass CALIPER
- J. Chen CIRRUS LOGIC S. Shah WESTERN DIGITAL
- B. Duran CALIPER T. Shea ADAPTEC
- D. Flower COMPAQ D. Skinner NCR
- J. Hamada MITSUBISHI ELECT'S S. Smyers AMD
- R. Hoehnle SEAGATE B. Snively SUN MICROSYSTEMS
- W. Ihde LMS OSD J. Spongr MITSUBISHI ELECT'S
- M. Jerbic HEWLETT PACKARD T. Stockwell MICROSOFT
- J. Katzung APPLE R. Tewell COLUMBIA DATA
- J. Lawlor AT&T BELL LABS T. Treadway DPT
- C. Linsley SMS D. Trupski OLIVETTI
- P. Manley SYQUEST TECHNOLOGY A. Turenne ARCHIVE
- G. Marazas IBM M. Van Scherrenburg NATIONAL SEMI
- G. Milligan CDC IMPRIMIS J. Webb SYTRON
- R. Monsour STAC C. Yang EMULEX
- T. Murray NCR E. Young ARCHIVE
- S. Neuner HITACHI COMP PRODS
-
- Working Group Reports
-
- The efforts by working groups are summarized here. Participants interested
- in the specific of the working group activities should call the leader of
- each effort.
-
- ATA/EATA
-
- Tom Hanan's comments on ATA were reviewed, and he is going to provide new
- sequence and timing information that will help comprehension. Tom is also
- compiling a list of all commands used by vendors at present so that we can
- assign opcodes to Vendor Unique or Reserved categories.
-
- If your company has a 40-pin ATA, send Tom (Fax: 714-553-8152) a list of
- your commands and their opcodes. If you do not, you just might wind up
- with your opcodes defined as Reserved, and not supposed to be used.
-
- A general concern over coupling ATA and EATA in the same document means that
- following the rev in this mailing, there will be a change in documentation
- to make it clearer that the two are separate, and that EATA is optional and
- an alternative. The ATA is to be specific to the 40-pin implementation.
-
- Bob Monsour reported that the Quarter Inch Cartridge committee is looking
- closely at EATA as a means of attached tape drives.
-
- OS/2
-
- Tracy Murray had a few problems in getting the meeting spot arranged, but
- the meeting itself was successful in that there were three representatives
- from Microsoft, and the ball is rolling on the list of issues which need to
- be addressed for OS/2. Microsoft has assigned a representative to work with
- the CAM Committee.
-
- Unix
-
- Todd Reichert held a small gathering at which a Sun Microsystems document
- was discussed as the basis for a Unix OSD. Until this document has been made
- more generic it will not be distributed to the Committee, but remain within
- the working group.
-
- Meeting
-
- Jerry Marazas made a short presentation to clarify his comments at the last
- meeting re the OS/2 Interrupt Manager. The Interrupt Manager has not really
- changed, it is more the philosophy. From one device type per Host Bus
- Adapter per driver to n device types per Host Bus Adapter per n drivers. The
- changes made are in the BIOS rather than the Interrupt Manager.
-
- Jerry Armstrong, Ron Perry, Shishir Shah, and Rick Tewell are merging the
- SIM, DOS OSD and Transport functions. Ron reported the changes made to the
- DOS OSD in response to earlier committee criticism. The fact that the OSD
- has to know about all the devices in advance (via CONFIG.SYS statements) was
- not well accepted. There was a general feeling that a user should not be
- forced to do this in all environments.
-
- The concept of whether there should be a static configuration at all was
- debated, and ended with general concurrence that it is desirable, but there
- was no agreement on the technique to provide this capability. It is likely
- vary by platform and OSD. Tom Shea pointed out that OS/2 on the AT makes no
- provision for a static configuration. Rick Tewell is to provide a precis of
- the problem and why a static config capability is needed to Microsoft.
-
- In Rick's presentation he explained that the degree of overlap between the
- OSD and the routing services of the Transport module make it desirable that
- the two be merged into an OS/Transport service. Providing the generic, aka
- short block, requests in the OST bothered Tom Shea as it implied there would
- only be a single entry point.
-
- If a vendor chose only to provide the routing functions and no short block
- services, a mechanism would have to be developed and supported by all HBA
- manufacturers to map across to short block software provided by other
- companies. Tom preferred multiple entry points so they could be independent.
-
- The general decision reached was to treat short block services as a device
- driver. A device vendor could provide a driver which supported the short
- blocks, and all would share a common router. It was agreed that there would
- be only one router in a system (if there is more than one, each would be
- oblivious to the other). This is to ensure that there is only one path to a
- device, and requests get properly serialized.
-
- John Webb is to supply a list of recommended short block services for tape
- and Patrick Manley is to do the same for disk.
-
- Jerry Katzung presented an overview of the improved services offered under
- Release 7 for the Macintosh. One of his biggest problems comes from having
- to support the old mode as well as the new. This drew laughter from all of
- those who have been suffering the same kind of pain in the IBM PC world.
-
- BBS Activities
-
- Rick Tewell is collating ideas to get on paper for the OSD/Transport. Anyone
- with direct input can reach him via the Columbia Data BBS (407-862-4724).
- Contact Ed Rauch at 407-869-6700 to get a user ID.
-
- Todd Reichert reminded everyone that if they want to participate in the Unix
- Working Group activities, to upload their E-Mail number to the SCSI BBS so
- they can be added to the E-Mail distribution list.
-
- Area 13 of the SCSI BBS (316-636-8700) is the clearing house between members
- working on proposals. Proposals etc will be in the Files section and short
- exchanges are in the Message section. If you think something should be on
- the board but is not, you may want to check Area 9 also.
-
- Complaints were heard at the meeting re the difficulty of getting into the
- BBS - either no ringing or connecting at 1200 instead of 2400 baud. The
- latter appears to be a modem problem. On occasion, I have found it helpful
- to go back to AT&T for dialing the SCSI BBS. Access in my area is by a
- prefix of 10288.
-
- Future Meetings:
-
- Air fares are the most expensive part of attending meetings, and in recent
- months we have all noticed a general increase in costs as the airlines cut
- back on their discounted travel programs.
-
- The airlines which have agreed to provide special air fares for all CAM
- meetings (as well as other ANSI meetings and working groups) are United and
- Northwest. The arrangements for each airline are the same.
-
- - Call a special 800 number which connects you to the Meetings desk.
- - The Meetings desk has limited hours, so no late night calling!
- - Supply the Travel ID Number for the airline you are calling.
- - Receive a flat 40% discount on regular air fares.
- - Receive an additional 5% on discounted fares.
- - Make arrangements at least 7 days in advance.
- - You can be ticketed by your own agent.
-
- Travel agents can use the number but they do not seem to like calling the
- Meetings desk - it takes longer than making reservations on their terminals
- and the airfare is lower (smaller commission).
-
- Airline Phone Number Meeting
- ------- ----- ------ -------
- United 800-521-4041 413TA All
- Northwest 800-328-1111 15201 All
-
- Our hosts are committed to a minimum number of room nights which are used to
- offset the cost of the conference rooms. Please make sure the hotel is given
- the name of the host organizing the meeting, even if it means placing the
- call yourself.
-
- Date Host City Hotel Hotel Phone
- ---- ---- ---- ----- -----------
- 7/12/89 AT&T Chicago Ramada O'Hare 800-272-6232
- * 8/9-10 Emulex Costa Mesa Red Lion 714-540-7000
- 9/ 8/89 Imprimis Oklahoma City tba
- 10/ 6/89 DPT Orlando tba
- 11/ 1/89 Future Domain Irvine tba
-
- * Note that this is a 2-day meeting on the assumption that we will have to
- review documents and take voting decisions on level of completion.
-
-
-
-
-
- I. Dal Allan
-