Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zds-ux!gerry
From: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Futurebus
Summary: Who's using it; in what form?
Message-ID: <197@zds-ux.UUCP>
Date: 22 Feb 90 21:24:29 GMT
References: <196@zds-ux.UUCP>
Reply-To: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason)
Organization: Zenith Data Systems
Lines: 26

We are presently looking at busses for possible future products. 
Futurebus is one of the possibilities, and I have some questions about
how it will be used.  From the time I have spent looking over the spec,
I get the impression that it is meant to be flexible wherever possible
to allow its performance to be scaled along with the technology, but
doesn't this make it hard for a true standard to emerge?  (my info
is based on IEEE Std 896.1-1987, and I don't know if there is anything
newer) Maybe instead of going straight for questions about how people
plan on implementing it, it would be better to have a more general
discussion, identify the places the spec gives the implementer a choice,
and determine if or how these choices would effect interoperability.

The forward states, "this standard provides users with a 'set of tools'
with which to build an implementation, rather than a rigid specification
. . ."  Doesn't this almost kill any widespread interoperability from the
start or are they saying that the 896.1 spec (hardware) can potentially
support more than one "firmware" spec (896.2, btw does this exist yet?)?

I'm sure others have a much deeper understanding of the spec than I do
at this point, so I'll hold off on any more questions, and wait to make
sure no one shows me that I'm totally off base, while deepening my
understanding further by reading the spec some more.

Thanks in advance.

Gerry Gleason