This message is from the T13 list server.
I agree that those commands do not offer much value these days. Although, I'm curious to know what ATA is gaining by obsoleting commands? You keep the current specification a little more clean, but you confuse the history of the specification. As mentioned in the previous email, obsoleting commands makes the dialog between the host and drive more difficult. Is it possible that for these obsoleted commands a drive vendor may return an error? If so, you have now required all host drivers to change their code to stop using these commands. At a minimum, they may need to be aware that the command may not succeed and appropriately ignore the possible error. It seems to me this leaves a lot of room for ambiguity. If everybody only ever had to worry about the most current incantation of the spec, then obsoleting pieces of the spec isn't such a concern. The problem is that people always have legacy requirements. Regards, Nate -----Original Message----- From: Hale Landis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 9:27 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [t13] vendor-specific as good as optional, outside the o.s.? This message is from the T13 list server. On Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:32:22 -0700, Pat LaVarre wrote: >This message is from the T13 list server. >Hang on a minute. There is a small gap between >Optional and Obsolete, but a wide wide wide gap >between Optional and VendorSpecific >The point of keeping Seek, Read/WriteLong, Recalibrate, >etc. etc. Optional is to give device folk a chance of >implementing something host folk want in advance. My point is this... Making RECALIBRATE, SEEK and FORMAT TRACK obsolete (and mostly implemented as a NO-OP these days) does not break anything. These commands don't really have any value on a modern drive. R/W LONG is a slightly different story... If these commands are REQUIRED and if they are really going to be used for anything PRODUCTIVE then they probably need to have a vendor specific implementation because the old MFM implementation is probably inadequate. >By quietly neglecting to carry forward these commands >past the 28 and 32 bit Lba limits, T10 & T13 have in >effect made it more difficult than it was for host & >device folk to cooperate. Nothing quiet about how T10 and T13 operate. Again... If you are using ATA or SCSI devices then you need to be watching what T10 and T13 are doing. And you need to complain or make alternative proposal when you see things happening that you do not like. *** Hale Landis *** www.ata-atapi.com ***
