** This is the quasi-official and semi-temporary T13 email list server. ** Hi Hale, I have the facts at hand, and they do not agree with your memory. > Yes, SFF has done and continues to do many good things for the > industry. My problem is not with SFF but with the editors of the > SFF-8020 document nearly 8 years ago. I sent many messages to those > gentlemen pointing out errors and inconsistencies in SFF-8020. I > never received a reply to any of those messages and those problems in > SFF-8020 were never fixed. The result is that T13 is still today > dealing with those problems (signature issues, byte count issues and > the true meaning of IO and CD). These are all ATA/ATAPI transport > layer issues and are clearly now T13's problem. When you sent those messages is key to whether or not they mattered, because one valid technical negative comment is enough to prevent a specification being published. None of your comments were made to SFF in a ballot on 8020. - September 1994 was the first time what had been a proprietary specification was made publicly available. - The ATAPI activity started at the SFF Committee in November 1994. - Nothing was presented to the members before 8020 was approved that mentioned any of the items on your list. - Raising issues after SFF-8020 was handed over to the standards committees was way too late. - SFF does not change specifications after they have been forwarded to a standards body. At a later point, the specification becomes Expired unless there are unique circumstances to keep it available. You have harsh words to say about several items being bad/wrong in SFF-8020 but there is no record of any of these being raised during the development of ATAPI e.g. the word 'signature' appears nowhere in my personal records of the ATAPI SSWGs and SFF meetings held in 1995 and 1996. > I was refering to the SFF-80xx documents that were developed with > little or no input from the members of the ATA hard disk drive > community (except perhaps one company that was very actively trying > to making everyone think they solely invented the IDE interface and > solely controlled its future). Attendance at the first two ATAPI SSWGs in November 1994 included the following companies. Cirrus Logic and Adaptec were the primary ATA chip vendors at the time, and Cirrus Logic was the host in Santa Clara. Adaptec Cirrus Logic Compaq Dell Computer Maxtor Phoenix Quantum Toshiba Western Digital SFF Committee attendance for 1995 and 1996 produced the following list in addition to the above of companies that are/were hard disk drive vendors. Conner Peripherals Fujitsu Hitachi IBM Integral Peripherals Phoenix Seagate > I was refering to only the SFF-80xx documents. Try being more specific. There are 64 assigned specifications in the range of 80xx of which 45 are Expired or Canceled. Of the remainder, I suspect Curtis Stephens would object to your tarring 8050i for Bootable CD ROM with the same brush that you use on ATAPI. SFF-8000 SFF Committee Information SFF-8009 4.1 Unitized Connector for Cabled Drives SFF-8012 3.0 4-Pin Power Connector Dimensions SFF-8030 1.8 SFF Committee Charter SFF-8031 Named Representatives of SFF Committee Members SFF-8032 1.4 SFF Committee Principles of Operation SFF-8040 1.2 25-pin Asynchronous SCSI Pinout SFF-8045 4.3 40-pin SCA-2 Connector w/Parallel Selection INF-8050i 1.0 Bootable CD-ROM SFF-8053 5.5 GBIC (Gigabit Interface Converter) SFF-8060 1.1 SFF Committee Patent Policy SFF-8061 1.1 Emailing drawings over the SFF Reflector SFF-8062 Rolling Calendar of SSWGs and Plenaries SFF-8067 2.8 40-pin SCA-2 Connector w/Bidirectional ESI INF-8068i 1.0 Guidelines to Import Drawings into SFF Specs INF-8070i 1.2 ATAPI for Rewritable Removable Media SFF-8072 1.2 80-pin SCA-2 for Fibre Channel Tape Applications SFF-8073 - 20-pin SCA-2 for GBIC Applications INF-8090i 5.1 ATAPI for DVD (Digital Video Data) > I clearly remember > that none of the hard disk drive vendors (other than the one I > refered to above) was invited to any of early ATAPI meeting (maybe > that was prior to ATAPI becoming an SFF activity?). Prior to SFF, the ATAPI meetings were private, but after it became public at SFF, some ATA hard disk vendors chose to boycott participation in ATAPI. These disk vendors fought a political battle in X3T9.2, trying to prevent ATAPI from proceeding. It was the wrong place, as the real battle was in the marketplace and ATAPI won that. > And I think everything in SFF-8020 is in ATA/ATAPI-4 and in MMC. If that were true, people would have stopped using SFF-8020. > The problem is those things in SFF-8020 that were incorrect or > misleading that T13 and T10 have tried to fix in ATA/ATAPI-x and MMC-x. Come off it..... This one time, let me set the record straight. - INF-8020 would never have been incorrect or misleading had issues been brought to light and submitted as comments during the development process. - That these issues were never raised during the two years it took to get INF-8020 approved is an indictment of those of who chose not to participate. - INF-8020 is the way it is because you and others decided not to get involved before it was published. Once the horse is out of the barn, closing the door does not help. This will be my last response on this subject. Dal -- If you have any questions or wish to unsubscribe send a message to Hale Landis, [EMAIL PROTECTED] To post to this list server send your message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For questions concerning Thistle Grove Industries or TGI's list services please send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
