July 21, 1989 The CAM (Common Access Method) Committee meetings of July 11-12, were hosted by AT&T in Chicago. The following attendees were present: J. Armstrong NCR W. Medlinski PANASONIC S. Betts NCR S. Neuner HITACHI COMP PRODUCTS B. Bonner WESTERN DIGITAL T. Newman ADAPTEC F. Burgess SEAGATE J. O'Hara SEAGATE J. Chen CIRRUS LOGIC D. O'Shea FUTURE DOMAIN A. Davis DELL COMPUTER J. Polonsky SMS D. Flower COMPAQ T. Reichert INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS J. Gallant DIGITAL EQUIPMENT E. Savoldi NCR R. Hoehnle SEAGATE S. Shah WESTERN DIGITAL W. Ihde LMS OSD T. Shea ADAPTEC N. Jain MICROSOFT S. Smyers AMD J. Jamieson EASTMAN KODAK B. Snively SUN MICROSYSTEMS A. Jardetzky OLIVETTI P. Stephens CIPHER/IRWIN M. Jerbic HEWLETT PACKARD T. Stockwell MICROSOFT R. Kellert CIRRUS LOGIC R. Tewell COLUMBIA DATA L. Lamers MAXTOR D. Trupski OLIVETTI J. Lawlor AT&T BELL LABS H. Weiner XYLOGICS R. Lewis EMULEX A. Wilhelm ADAPTEC R. Liu FUJITSU AMERICA C. Yang EMULEX J. Lohmeyer NCR M. Yokoyama SONY P. Manley SYQUEST TECHNOLOGY E. Young ARCHIVE G. Marazas IBM 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 Treadway proposed a method for First Party DMA, which was accepted. Cirrus Logic and Western Digital provided a critique of the AT specification which resulted in some changes being made. Tom Hanan reported that despite the plea in the last minutes, only Conner Peripherals had responded with a list of opcodes. 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. The next working group will be ATA-only, and is meeting at the Le Baron Hotel in San Jose on August 2. OS/2 There was some confusion over starting time, with Microsoft representatives arriving at 8:00am for a 1pm meeting. Tom Shea led the group in listing off al the problems that could be foreseen running with OS/2. Unix Both AT&T and Sun Microsystems provided documents on how SCSI has been integrated into their Unix implementations. Despite the differences there were strong similarities in the interface to software drivers. Meeting What began as an indictment of some of the problems introduced by the arbitrary times established by OS/2 turned into a long debate on the inadequacies of Second Party DMA and the dire consequences in software of having to support minimalist Host Bus Adapters on the PC AT. Following presentations by Joe Lawlor and Bob Snively on the approach taken within the Unix working group, the goals of an OS-independent SIM came into question. In a major shift of direction, CAM is going to focus on one interface for software to access adapters, and this will vary by Operating System. It was assumed that every HBA supplier would provide a driver to bridge from the CAM-defined interface to the manufacturer's registers etc. Device Driver ==================== CAM Committee Defined Interface OSD/SIM ==================== Internal Interface HBA ==================== SCSI-defined Interface SCSI Device Phillip Stephens of Cipher/Irwin was adamant that DOS provide multitasking capabilities even though DOS is single tasking. With over 700,000 licensed copies installed, Irwin is one of the two largest suppliers of backup software, and is dependent upon multitasking to obtain adequate performance. Phillip touched on an architecture developed to support multiple platforms by reusing functional modules and "C." He hopes to provide more information at the Costa Mesa meeting. 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 American 800-433-1790 *S08Z94E 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 ---- ---- ---- ----- ----------- ATA 8/ 2 Cirrus Logic San Jose Le Baron 408-453-6200 * 8/9-10 Emulex Costa Mesa Red Lion 714-540-7000 9/ 8/89 Imprimis Oklahoma City Sheraton 405-235-2780 10/ 6/89 DPT Orlando Royal Plaza 407-828-2828 11/ 1/89 Future Domain Irvine Embassy Suites 714- * This is a 2-day meeting so that we can review the progress made to date by with OS/2, DOS and Unix working groups meeting on 8/9. We hope to have document proposals to review. Todd Reichert invites everyone who wants to participate in the Unix Working Group activities, to upload an E-Mail number to the SCSI BBS so he can add them to his 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. I. Dal Allan