August 18, 1989 The CAM (Common Access Method) Committee meetings of August 9-10 were hosted by Emulex in Costa Mesa. The following attendees were present: D. Allan ENDL J. O'Hara SEAGATE J. Armstrong NCR D. O'Shea FUTURE DOMAIN C. Ballard BALLARD SYNERGY J. Polonsky SMS B. Barnett OLIVETTI K. Post FUTURE DOMAIN S. Betts NCR M. Ramezani FUTURE DOMAIN F. Burgess SEAGATE L. Robinson STORAGE DIMENSIONS J. Gallant DIGITAL EQUIPMENT E. Savoldi NCR R. Hoehnle SEAGATE S. Shah WESTERN DIGITAL W. Ihde LMS OSD T. Shea ADAPTEC A. Jardetzky OLIVETTI P. Stephens CIPHER/IRWIN M. Jerbic HEWLETT PACKARD T. Stockwell MICROSOFT R. Kramarz 1776 E. Tausheck HEWLETT PACKARD R. Lewis EMULEX R. Tewell COLUMBIA DATA P. Manley SYQUEST TECHNOLOGY D. Trupski OLIVETTI G. Marazas IBM A. Welsh COLUMBIA DATA G. Milligan IMPRIMIS J. Willis 1776 D. Neufeld COMPAQ C. Yang EMULEX T. Newman ADAPTEC E. Young ARCHIVE .uj 1 Working Group Reports Participants interested in the specific of the working group activities should call the leader of each effort. ATA/EATA The working group met in San Jose on August 2, hosted by Cirrus Logic. The comments received from Cirrus Logic, Imprimis, Western Digital et al were reviewed and the ATA specification was critiqued in detail. There was no review of EATA. If your company has a 40-pin ATA, send Tom (Fax: 714-553-8152) a list of your Vendor Unique 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. Rev 1.4 of ATA/EATA is attached. It includes the changes recommended at the WG. Any item which remains unresolved is identified in square braces and names the person with the action to complete it. Changes are marked in bold. Unix The Unix OSD working group was canceled because Joe Lawlor and Todd Reichert could not make it. Meeting This meeting had been set up to run two days on the assumption that there would be documents to review. However, there was no draft working document to review so both days were dedicated to proposals for the DOS OSD and the wrinkles that would have to be considered for OS/2. Presentations on current implementations/proposals were made by: C. Ballard BALLARD SYNERGY D. O'Shea FUTURE DOMAIN S. Shah WESTERN DIGITAL T. Shea ADAPTEC P. Stephens CIPHER/IRWIN The Chicago departure from the goal of an OS-independent SIM was debated. This decision was questioned during the presentations, and seemed completely done away with when Clint made the statement that he had developed a ROMable SIM. The OSDs are unlikely to have diverging OSDs. The similarities in functions needed led to the conclusion that a single data structure could work for all environments, so the second day was spent reaching agreement on what could be used by the OSs that were known to be required (DOS, Novell, OS/2, Unix, Windows/386) There was extensive discussion on pointers (virtual, real et al) and the sizes needed. It was agreed that a 64-bit pointer field would be used and each different platform (OS and CPU) would define the contents. It is hoped that a document will be available by the September meeting, or in the mailing immediately thereafter. September Agenda: There will be no shortage of content at the meeting in Oklahoma. Ted Stockwell volunteered a joint presentation by Microsoft and IBM on OS/2, and Jerry Marazas will architecturally explore the BIOS requirements to support DOS. 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 ---- ---- ---- ----- ----------- 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- 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