Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!entec!jlohmeye
From: jlohmeye@entec.Wichita.NCR.COM (John Lohmeyer)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Trouble in SCSI-Land: On PC-computers, it isn't really standard!
Summary: Right, but there is hope...
Message-ID: <528@entec.Wichita.NCR.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 90 17:41:18 GMT
References: <1990Mar15.042028.16024@Octopus.COM>
Reply-To: jlohmeye@entec.Wichita.NCR.COM (John Lohmeyer)
Organization: NCR Corporation, Wichita, KS
Lines: 39
Keywords:

In article <1990Mar15.042028.16024@Octopus.COM> pete@octopus.COM (Pete Holzmann) writes:
>Based on experiences during the past 6 months, I've come to the sorry 
>conclusion that SCSI is not defined well enough as an interface standard,
>at least in the PC world. [If SCSI is the base I/O scheme for peripherals,
>as in the Mac, etc, then I'm sure things ought to be much better...]
>
>I'd love to be proven wrong; I'd love for someone to tell me 'there will be
>a good solution in N months'. Does anyone have any insight?

I wish I had an exact value for N, but I don't.  There is an industry group
working on the problem called the CAM Committee (Common Access Method).
Dal Allan chairs this group and he can be reached at 408-867-6630.  This
group has a draft document and is making progress.

IBM and Microsoft are also rumored to to working on their own solution. No
one knows whether it is compatible with CAM or not.  (That is, no one I know
knows or they are not telling :-).

As for the first-party DMA (bus master) problems with memory management 
software, I believe there are software solutions available for these 
problems.  You might want to check with your host adapter vendor or with
your software vendor.

>Feeling somewhat disgruntled by the whole mess...

I hope this helps.  The PC market really needs the CAM standard or a
decent IBM/Microsoft de facto standard.  By "decent", I mean one that is
generic enough to permit a wide range of solutions.  Whatever IBM announces
(and whenever), let's hope there is a decent software interface with it so
people do not feel compeled to write code that speaks directly to the
hardware.  If this happens, then it will be difficult to offer higher or
lower performance versions of the SCSI hardware.


-- 
John Lohmeyer         J.Lohmeyer@Wichita.NCR.COM
NCR Corp.             uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!entec!jlohmeye
3718 N. Rock Rd.      Voice: 316-636-8703
Wichita, KS 67226     SCSI BBS 316-636-8700 300/1200/2400 24 hours