On Sun, 1 Oct 2017, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
I've looked for but cannot find any WD or Compaq documents publically
using IDE to describe what ultimately issued as ATA-1. My search
included various Compaq maintenance manuals.
Thank you very much for doing those searches!
My first encounter with one was in a Compaq, without having previously
heard any mention that they were going to do anything like that. And no
prior mention of "IDE" NOR "ATA".
It was a surprise, but seemed to make sense.
So, the PR and naming bodies of the relevant companies let it go into use
without massive prior bragging! I hadn't been paying close attention to
CDC nor Connor, but I seemed to have missed whatever WD or Compaq had
advertised about it at Comdex.
And then, later, I heard "IDE", before I had heard "ATA", but that was
presumably just due to the circles that I dealt with.
The earliest public use of
ATA and AT attachment that I can find is March 1969 at the CAM committee
Would that be 1989?
My recollection (possibly flawed) is WD tried to have the responsible
committee change the name to IDE and failed.
especially interesting
Standards committees are always being pressured by individual companies to
use the specific structures and terminologies of those companies.
I do have a confidential WD document from 1965 which does use the term
IDE for "Integrated Drive Electronics" referring to their chips, a drive
built with these chips was called an "Integrated Drive" or an ID.
Would that be 1985?
The CAM and ANSI committees have since March 1969 defined ATA == AT
Would that be 1989?
(In 1969, it would certainly NOT be a reference to the IBM PC/AT (5170)!)
OK.
It was explicitly a reference to the PC/AT, which was an acronym for
"Advanced Technology".
BUT, from what you've said, they explicitly and deliberately chose to
reference the IBM acronym, WITHOUT ever breaking it down to reference
what the IBM acronum had previously stood for!
Q: Is "SATA": "Serial ATA" or "Serial AT Attachment"? (Did they
reference an acronym without referencing the terms of the acronym, again?)
I am going to guess that "PARALLEL ATA" came into being as a NAME, after
"SATA", solely to differentiate it. Similarly to how "DOUBLE Density"
bacame a name before "SINGLE Density" ("SINGLE" was only needed later, to
differentiate it). And how "WORLD WAR TWO" was used as a name before
"WORLD WAR ONE" was ever used as a name ("The Great War" got renamed when
it was important to compare and differentiate it it from its successor).
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred [email protected]
