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- January 17, 1988
-
-
- The SCSI-2 CAM (Common Access Method) Committee of January 12 was hosted at
- the Red Lion Inn, Costa Mesa, by Western Digital. The following attendees were
- present at the meeting:
-
- M. Aarons EMULEX J. McGrath QUANTUM
- D. Allan ENDL L. Mihalik NCR
- J. Armstrong NCR T. Murray NCR
- B. Babbitt BABBITT ENGINEERING S. Nester SMS
- P. Bair NCR L. Payne OPTOTECH
- C. Ballard BALLARD SYNERGY R. Perry SEAGATE
- S. Betts NCR J. Polonsky SMS
- B. Bonner WESTERN DIGITAL T. Putnam OPTOTECH
- M. Brownstein INFOWORLD M. Ramezani WESTERN DIGITAL
- F. Burgess SEAGATE D. Rawcliffe SEAGATE
- M. Dawson NCR T. Reichert INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS
- L. Edwards VERBATIM L. Robinson STORAGE DIMENSIONS
- M. Evans SYTRON Z. Sagi WESTERN DIGITAL
- C. Fleckenstein NCR J. Semenak AT&T
- J. Hamada MITSUBISHI ELECT S. Shah WESTERN DIGITAL
- L. Holmstrom IOMEGA T. Shea ADAPTEC
- W. Ihde LMS OSD D. Skinner NCR
- M. Jerbic HEWLETT PACKARD G. Slaughter SUN MICROSYSTEMS
- J. Katzung APPLE B. Snively ADAPTEC
- L. Lamers SONY J. Stedt PEER PROTOCOLS
- J. Lawlor AT&T J. Tennant SMS
- C. Linsley SMS J. Tierney WANGDAT
- J. Lohmeyer NCR A. Welsh COLUMBIA DATA
- P. Manley SYQUEST TECHNOLOGY B. Wheeler SYSGEN
- G. Marazas IBM E. Young ARCHIVE
- D. McDonald DILOG
-
- Presentations were made by: SUN MICROSYSTEMS Greg Slaughter
- BALLARD SYNERGY Clint Ballard
- NCR Jerry Armstrong
-
- The main focus of this meeting was to define the model and a glossary of
- terms. Jerry Armstrong had consolidated material from several people. By
- arrangements made via the SCSI BBS there was a pre-meeting get-together by
- those working on expanding the structure based concepts from December. The
- results of this consolidated the individual efforts and formed the basis for
- much of the material covered in the meeting.
-
- NOTE: The SCSI BBS (316-636-8700) is the clearing house for idea exchanges
- between members working on proposals. If you want to participate, dial in and
- go to Area 13 for the CAM information. Proposals etc will be in the Files
- section and short exchanges are in the Message section.
-
- Greg Slaughter described Sun Microsystems's approach toward writing SCSI
- drivers. There was an interesting interchange on the rationale for his
- approach which included no provision for AutoSense.
-
- Clint Ballard at Ballard Synergy described the syntax which had been defined
- at the pre-meeting at Western Digital the previous evening (see attached).
-
- Jerry Armstrong of NCR described the structure which had been agreed upon the
- previous evening (see attached).
-
- There was much interaction on the subject matter presented, and an expansion
- of the model to define the levels within the CAM layer. The name of the
- function is shown in the boxes and the relevant control blocks are named to
- the right.
-
- CPU & Operating System
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- +-----------------------+
- | OSD Driver | Operating System Dependent Control Block
- +-----------------------+
- | Transport Module | Transport Control Block
- +-----------------------+
- | SCSI Interface Module | Common Access Method Control Block
- +-----------------------+
- | Protocol Hardware | Command Descriptor Block
- +-----------------------+
-
- - The OSD is Operating System Dependent and will contain the references that
- are necessary to cross the border in and out of the CAM layer.
- - The Transport Module contains a truncated form of the CAM Control Block for
- functions which do not need a SCSI CDB e.g. CAM configuration.
- - The Interface Module manages the CAM Control Block and contains all the
- information necessary to dispatch a CDB on behalf of the requester.
- - The protocol hardware is self-explanatory.
-
- Proposals on how pointers should be handled are to be included in the OSD
- interface. In the control blocks a pointer is presently represented as being
- 4* bytes - the * indicates that we do not have a method yet, and the field
- size is subject to change. OS/2 may require both Physical and Virtual pointers
- to be carried and other environments may use segments with offsets.
-
- A lot of details have to be fleshed out, and a number of volunteers are going
- to prepare material which will be consolidated by Jerry Armstrong. In
- parallel, I will be working on a suitable format for the standardization of
- the CAM.
-
- We have to comply with many editing and style rules to publish standards. I
- expect to be able to integrate the proposals into a working document that is
- in a standards format after the February meeting.
-
- The volunteers are not necessarily going it alone, as in some cases, more than
- one was willing to work on the same subject. The volunteers are shown by
- subject matter, and the number shown in parentheses corresponds to the Open
- Issues on the last page of the Working Document Proposal.
-
- Target Functions Bob Snively (2, 3)
- Initialization Shishir Shah
- Queueing Jim McGrath (4)
- CHS Algorithm Judy Polonsky (7)
- OSDs:
- Apple II Jerry Katzung (5)
- DOS Ron Perry (5)
- Mac Jerry Katzung (5)
- Novell Lance Robinson (5)
- OS/2 Tracy Murray (5)
- Unix Joe Lawlor (5)
-
- The primary task at our February 22 meeting will be to critique all the
- proposals that are developed over the next few weeks, so there should be a lot
- of work to review in Austin. Now for the dates. The CAM meetings are going to
- be scheduled following SCSI meeting activities. The dates and known
- arrangements are shown below.
-
- Be sure to make your reservations as early as possible for a meeting. The
- plenary hosts will not necessarily be our CAM hosts, but every effort will be
- made to meet in the same hotel. At present we have no host for Austin. If
- there are no volunteers then we will run as no-host and charge a meeting fee
- of $10-20 to cover meeting room costs and coffee.
-
- 2/22/89 Austin Wyndham Southpark Hotel 512-448-2222
- Mention X3T9/Motorola meeting (No CAM host yet)
- 3/ 8/89 San Jose tbd by Jim McGrath (Quantum)
- 4/26/89 St Petersburg Tradewinds Hotel 813-367-6461
- Mention X3T9/AMP meeting (Columbia Data is host)
- 5/10/89 Wichita tbd by John Lohmeyer (NCR)
- 6/21/89 San Jose tbd by AMD
-
-
-
-
-
- I. Dal Allan
- Chairman
-
-