Re: SCSI expert needed

From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:00:52 -0500
Message-ID: <AANLkTino=zsFuGeGJtqVb3GeJZkyVz-5zRS5RvpBaLgF@mail.gmail.com>
On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 4:45 AM, Peter Krefting <peter@softwolves.pp.se> wrote:
>> A very quick Google search brought me this:
>> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ansi/X3T9/X3T9.3_185_RevE_SASI_Apr82.pdf
.
.
.
> For SCSI, the range of commands differ depending on the type of device you
> are targetting, so you first need to ask the device about what it is (12
> INQUIRY), and then target your commands accordingly. It doesn't seem like
> SASI had that.

INQUIRY may be mandatory now, but it didn't exist for SASI nor for early SCSI.

Back when it was common to have a SCSI "bridge" card (SCSI to MFM,
SCSI to ESDI, etc), it was still common to have to tell the host
computer (the one with the SCSI controller) details about the MFM or
ESDI drive on the far side of the bridge.  ISTR the formatting
software would instruct the bridge to write that data to a low track
(unaccessable to the host) so that the bridge card would know those
details about the drive going forward.  When embedded SCSI drives
started coming out, I remember how revolutionary it was that your host
software could send an INQUIRY packet and have the drive tell you all
about itself.  So much easier!

-ethan

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Received on 2011-01-27 16:00:15

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