Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!haven!trantor.umd.edu!louie
From: louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: My 1.4 wishlist item
Message-ID: <3073@haven.umd.edu>
Date: 23 Mar 89 05:54:55 GMT
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Reply-To: louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos)
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Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
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Now that Amiga systems seem to have large capacity disks on them, it would
sure be nice to be able to back 'em up.  I would like Commodore to define
and (in the case of the 2090 and 2090A) implement a standard interface
to a SCSI host adaptor.

Here we've got a number of perfectly good SCSI host adaptors, and
device drivers that respond to trackdisk.device commands.  But we've got no
standard way to talk to tape devices.  I don't want to solve the problem
for just tape devices; what about the guy that comes along with a SCSI
scanner or digitizer, or a SCSI attached laser printer?  Just think how
much easier he could support that hardward if he knew there was a standardized
SCSI interface for submitting arbitrary SCSI commands?  Given a standard
driver interface, the SCSI bus might become the interface of choice for
certain types of hardware.  If you've got limited resources, develop a
product for a SCSI interface rather than an Amiga bus.  It will be useful
on more platforms.

The SCSI interface should be able to support multiple SCSI threads (i.e.
a command which has been started, but the target has disconnected), as well
as having the Amiga be a *target* on the bus, and not just an *initiator*.
Also should a controller be marked as "busy" if a unit on the controller
is busy?  Or once the controller has disconnected, should I be able to
start a command on another unit on that same controller?

It seems to me that this is the obvious way to write a driver for a host
adaptor; you build a general interface for SCSI commands, and then a 
trivial device drive that takes trackdisk.device commands and calls on
the SCSI driver.

My other wish is a Commodore defined standard disk label/partition table
on a disk drive.  You should be able to specify the size and file system
type for each partition, and if a partition should be "automatically"
mounted at boot time or not.

I'm just full of good ideas, huh?




Louis A. Mamakos  WA3YMH    Internet: louie@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU
University of Maryland, Computer Science Center - Systems Programming