Revision as of 22:27, 26 June 2008

This template must be substituted. Replace {{Requested move ...}} with {{subst:Requested move ...}}.

Requested move

• This article was originally (and for quite some time) named "AT Attachment". User The Anome (talk) moved it to "Advanced Technology Attachment", its present name, with the following justification. My response describing my arguments for moving it back to "AT Attachment" follow. Jeh (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

"AT Attachment" is not a good name for this article, since it's neither the common usage, nor the official name.

The Misplaced Pages naming convention is that we should in general use the common name of a thing as its article title, or, if there is sufficiently good reason, or a class exception to the general rule, the official name.

For example, the article on North Korea should either be called North Korea (which is the name almost universally used by others), or Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the full official name of the country in English). "DPR Korea" would not be a good name, since it is neither.

Thus, we should either call the ATA article "Advanced Technology Attachment" (common name), or "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" (official name). Even though it's officially incorrect, almost everyone reads ATA as meaning Advanced Technology Attachment -- not unreasonably, since "AT" originally stood for "Advanced Technology". I believe the article should stay with that name, according to Misplaced Pages policy.

To try to clarify this, I've now started the intro in the article with: "AT Attachment with Packet Interface, commonly known as Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)..." -- The Anome (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe that is correct. "AT Attachment" (Google: 173,000 hits) seems to me to be far more common than "Advanced Technology Attachment" (61,000 hits). This is also my personal experience, not that that means anything.

Furthermore the term "AT Attachment Interface" (note, without the "packet interface" part - more on this in a moment) occurs in many places in the spec document. The term "advanced technology" appears nowhere.

I think most people will use "ATA" in preference to either of these. (Google for "ATA drive": 246,000; "ATA interface", 417,000; and there are many others; of course there is overlap.) But "ATA" would not be a good name for the article as it is imprecise (there are many other things abbreviated "ATA").

I believe this leaves us with "AT Attachment" as the best compromise between correctness and common usage. It is also the name this article had for many years with no complaints.

I'm afraid you have introduced further confusion and error regarding "ATAPI". The full title of the specification document is e.g. "AT Attachment with Packet Interface - 6 (ATA/ATAPI-6)", but that does not mean that "ATAPI" may be used to refer to the entire specification, as you have done in at least one place in your recent edits.

The formal "short name" for the entire spec is "ATA/ATAPI-6" (the 6 is the version number). Note that the "ATA" part is not omitted, even though it seems redundant. "ATAPI" by itself does not provide what in the OSI model we would call the physical and data link layers; in "ATA/ATAPI" devices, the ATAPI commands and responses are sent and received via the ATA interface and protocol.

The spec describes the ATA physical interface, signaling protocol, and ATA commands and responses. An ATA hard drive uses only this portion of the spec. The spec also describes the "packet interface" protocol used by ATAPI devices to send and receive SCSI commands and responses over the ATA interface.

So... any ATAPI device (such as a DVD-ROM drive) that uses the "ATA" 40-pin connector and interface described here is also an ATA device - you can't officially call it just "ATAPI" even though that is very common. Technically it's an "ATA/ATAPI" device.

On the other hand an ATA hard drive is most emphatically not an ATAPI device.

Therefore using the term "ATAPI" as if to refer to the entire spec is incorrect. Writing out "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" as if to refer to the entire spec would be correct, but misleading.

I will try to come up with a reasonably succint way to explain all of these points and bring the whole article into alignment with these usages, pending further discussion here.Jeh (talk) 22:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have done that, but I still think we need to move the page back to "AT Attachment". According to WP:Requested moves this should be treated as a controversial move (since it was recently moved in good faith, etc.) so I am following the procedure given there.

Does anyone else have any comments about the name? Jeh (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have to confess that I made a stupid error regarding the Google search. Since Google does not preserve case "AT attachment" produces a large number of false hits. However "Advanced technology attachment" is pretty darn specific. "AT attachment" while excluding "drive", "interface", and "cable" yields 124,000 hits. I propose that the difference between this number and the previous number (246,000) gives a decent approximation to the pages using "AT attachment" in the way we're interested here: 122,000. "Advanced technology attachment" with these same exclusions yields only 5270 hits, leaving 58,000 hits by the same rules. So "AT attachment" still wins, by two to one instead of three. I'd be interested in seeing what results others find from other searches. Jeh (talk) 05:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The OSI model that I mention was an example for the broadcasting infrastructure network, which is only a reference and has no relevance to ATAPI.(I never stated that ATAPI used it, read carefuly before you start posting nonsense.) --Ramu50 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ramu, my mention of OSI was in response to The Anome's comments, not to yours. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

How about just renaming to IDE specification and redirect Advanced Technology Attachement, ATA and ATAPI to IDE specification. We can explain what is ATA (the cable), AT(cable material), ATA(specification), ATAPI. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Renaming to "IDE" is not an option in this discussion. Once this question (rename back to "AT Attachment", or not) is resolved, you can bring that up as a proposed rename if you like. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the article on "ATA" should be named 'Advanced Technology Attachment' and the reason for that is that almost all other technical terms are expanded to their full meaning to avoid future name collisions when new acronyms becomes established. ATA/AT attachment etc.. is just redirect linked to the article with fully expanded name. If there comes a new technology like "Arbitration Test Attachment".. should that also be named "AT Attachment" ..?.. *problem*. Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But "Advanced Technology..." is not the "full meaning" of "AT Attachment". It is just "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Also beware of using google or any other search engine as a reference. It's all to easy to get suckered into 1000 flies can't be wrong, shit must be good ;-) Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming the spec can't be wrong about its own name. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I also see ATAPI as extension to the original 'Advanced Technology Attachment' specification. Note that I do not call ATA a standard. Because ATA has always been a royal mess in all aspects. Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, "Advanced Technology Attachment" isn't the "full meaning." It's never spelled out that way in the dcouments. Not even in version 1. It's always been just "AT Attachment". So that is the fully expanded name. But... thank you for your input. Jeh (talk) 17:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

User The Anome (talk), who renamed it from "AT Attachment" to "Advanced Technology Attachment" in the first place, has said renaming it to "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" is "fine with me" (him): ]. To me this is better than "Advanced Technology Attachment" but worse than "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

: But "Advanced Technology..." is not the "full meaning" of "AT Attachment". It is just "AT 
Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong Jeh, at the time period when IDE HDD was invented it can be considered. Actually Advanced Technology, ATA or Advanced Technology Attachment is synonymous to each other.

Again, "Advanced Technology Attachment" isn't the "full meaning." It's never spelled out that 
way in the dcouments

Says by who

By the way, which website is the official specifications, I am getting confused after searching numerous websites.

The reason why ATAPI was not used until UDMA came out was because of the reason
(Note: I wrote days last week, was thinking of posting it, but still not quite sure).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really believe that we should name it to IDE Device, because there is a lot of problem regarding ATAPI.

ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) -there is quite a confusion in the word “packet,” because initially packet is describe compress form of data (since military require communication, packet was generally accepted as a compress data)

However, it is also very controversial that whether or not AT uses packet or not. You'll have to know the actually instruction code to determine if they uses. So I think this is probably what the INCITS committee came up (a prediction)

Packet---compress data (for processor request through Southbridge) Packet---contain compress data or thread only 　　　(if on-board 48 bit LBA or built-in ECHS exists on the HDD) ATAPI-6 http://en.kioskea.net/pc/ide-ata.php3 Packet---contains data only, due to management software or some form of interpreter existence

If contain header, then it is for SANs not consumer product (because nowadays they are still insufficient understanding of how storage management really works, placing a specification wouldn't be wise, because DBMS is still being mapped out) and they are currently absoultely no understanding or any explanation as to why Connectivity such as JDBC or ODBC results in faster speed performance. -initially ANSI was going to place specification on IRQ, but it didn’t happen, because unprecedented of header were found. I predicited this, because in Pentium 4 systems, almost all computers avaliable IRQ are quite synonymous to each other Packet---contain binary header (IRQ) Packet---contain MAC address (for network packet)

Packet---contain loosely instruction code, for Southbridge to process (the simplest processing can be achieve the same way as the first Pong game console architecture (most people called it discrete form of processor, even though it is accepted, but everybody knows it is not the best term, because discrete of processor has a connotation of copying of processor). However, processor didn't exists at that stage of history, therefore you shouldn't accuse people of wrongdoings for the things they never done.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Questions, why does Misplaced Pages force me that I have to use br tags = =

Jeh, do you mind stop being an asshole. Stop using the discussion as your own page, I deleted your testing page.

This article was originally (and for quite some time) named "AT Attachment". User The Anome 
(talk) moved it to "Advanced Technology Attachment", its present name, with the following 
justification. My response describing my arguments 

Misplaced Pages is a user friendly page Encycloepdia, stop posting things as if you are bias on a user, you make everything sound like as if you want to post a legal threat. Who the hell cares it was originally named, people don't stupid things, just because you don't understand what other is thinking doesn't mean you are king. They understand their common sense, stating it that was originally named seems to be is more accusing ones' wrongdoing, what did you contribute to this discussion? --Ramu50 (talk) 22:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization and archiving of talk page

I have organized the open discussions and not-yet-addressed requests for edits, following somewhat the idea presented by Ramu50 below, but also archiving the long-dead discussions and suggestions that have either already been applied, or rejected, or addressed in another way. The archive is here: Talk:AT Attachment/archive1

Thanks Jeh, but please sign your post next time. If I got time I will try to update the ATA vs IDE confusion, I just notice that I miss something important. The schedule of how we should re-arrange, organize, add, take off...etc. actions I will read further into each discussion and suggests final request. The categorization was looking at every single discussion title. I provided the info to once and for all make a big clear up and give fully substanial knowledge that includes recent notes. It took me 5 hours to write it, so I didn't have time to go through each discussion, but with all due respect I will try to finish reading the discussion hopefully before the end of June. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a horrible talk page. It is not organized like any other. Adding new discussions will not work properly in the current format. 70.51.10.4 (talk) 06:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

1) Not true, there are other large talk pages in which the upper-level organization overrides chronological order. In TALK:MOSNUM, for example, there are several ongoing discussions running in parallel at any time, and it's very common for entries higher on the page to be made later. 2) I just tested the "new section" button. It works fine. 3) The order in which contributions are made to the talk page is not necessarily worth preserving at the expense of a higher-level organization. It's impossible to maintain chronological order as long as there are several different categories with several subsections in each. I think this makes it much easier to see what needs to be done. When items are completed we'll move them to the archive page, so eventually (I hope sooner rather than later) there will be very few entries here, few enough that we can go back to chronological order. (But the archive page isn't chronological either...) While you are here, do you have any comments on the renaming issue? Jeh (talk) 06:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok... in the few sections where they were not already, I arranged the subsections in order by the first entry in each. Within each subsection the entries are in chrono order, as they always have been. BTW some of these questions and suggestions were outstanding for a year or more before replies showed up, this probably added to the overall impression of a random order. Jeh (talk) 07:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Following the IP's note above, "New questions" section is now at the end. The "New section" button will now do exactly the right thing. Jeh (talk) 21:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ongoing, open, and unresolved discussions and questions

The following sections contain discussion threads that are still here (and not archived) either because questions are still extant, or the article page has not been checked to see if the points raised have been addressed. When such checking (and, if necessary, editing) of the main page is done, then if the relevant section here receives no more comments for a reasonable time, that section should be moved to the archive page.

Individual threads have been gathered into higher-level categories. This should make it easier for subject matter experts to address them. Jeh (talk) 21:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Recent features and developments

HPA/DCO

It might be nice to see at least some mention of the HPA and DCO features added in later ATA revisions. -- TDM 13:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Does someone know the meaning of these acronyms ..? , and their more specific context. Electron9 06:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Host Protected Area and Device Configuration Overlay are features which allow one to hide areas of the physical disk from the operating system (and in the case of DCO, hide device features). I'm not an expert on these things and would love to see detailed articles on them. I see that HPA is now a separate article and is linked to, so that's a good start. DCO is newer and more mysterious and could definitely use more exposure. TDM 14:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

DCO now seems to have an article as well. Both should be mentioned and linked from this article. Jeh (talk) 07:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

PATA vs. SATA use widespreadness

The page says, about PATA that "t provides the most common and the least expensive interface for this application". In light of motherboards sold currently (08/2007) and introduced in the past year, I'd say this is no longer true. Most of the motherboards sport only a single PATA connector, meant for DVD drive, and hard drives are expected to be attached to the SATA connectors. Also PATA versions of new drives have for some time been a bit harder to come by, and often a bit more expensive, or at least equal in price to SATA ones.

Thus I propose we'd change the page to reflect this. Something like "From 199x all the way to 2006 it provided the most common and least expensive.."

Zds 11:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

P-ATA was in use before 199x. Also P-ATA will proberbly be used by embedded products for a long time. Since S-ATA interfaces are hard to find in a single chip (S-ATA PHY). Electron9 22:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Addressed. What do you think now? Jeh (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Passwords / security

From this article:

In Maximum security mode, you cannot unlock the disk! The only way to get the disk back to a usable state is to issue the SECURITY ERASE PREPARE command, immediately followed by SECURITY ERASE UNIT. The SECURITY ERASE UNIT command requires the Master password and will completely erase all data on the disk. The operation is rather slow, expect half an hour or more for big disks. (Word 89 in the IDENTIFY response indicates how long the operation will take.)

From the article in c't:

When setting his or her password the user can choose between the security levels "High" and "Maximum." When the level "High" is chosen the disk will accept either the user or the master password to unlock the disk or disable the protection function. When "Maximum" is the choice only the user password will provide access to the data. Should it get lost then the administrator with his or her master password will only be able to unlock the disk after forfeiting all the data stored upon it. Which step is accomplished by the command Security Erase: It erases all the information by writing zeros onto all sectors of the hard disk before again allowing access to it.

These seem contradictory.

Ealex292 (talk) 02:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

MWDMA, SWDMA?

Does the newest ATAPI version describe
-MWDMA & SWDMA, PIO, DMA and UDMA?

By the way anybody know how these 2 works MWDMA (Maxiumum Multi Word DMA) SWDMA (Single Word DMA) (My guess)---not sure on this one

Assumptions
I think MWDMA is use for MLC NAND FLASH via other interfaces, like via IDE and other types of Media Cards. And SWDMA is probably for SLC NAND FLASH I think. --Ramu50 (talk) 01:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Connectors, cabling, physical interface

Suggested fix for picture of cables

On my monitor I can't see any difference between the "80 conductor cable" and the "40 conductor cable" (second picture), except that the connectors are colored. I think we should find a picture that better shows the different conductor spacing. All of you others, get right on that. ;) Seriously, I'll see if I can't take one myself. Jeh 09:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Apparent error in the "cable select" section

I think this passage is confusing or inaccurate:

"With the 40-wire cable it was very common to implement cable select by simply cutting the pin 28 wire between the two device connectors. This puts the slave device at the end of the cable, and the master on the "middle" connector. This arrangement eventually was standardized in later versions of the specification. If there is just one device on the cable, this results in an unused "stub" of cable. This is undesirable, both for physical convenience and electrical reasons: The stub causes signal reflections, particularly at higher transfer rates."

I would've fixed it myself, but I'm not sure I understand it. If early users were hacking ribbon cables to have an open pin 28, that would only work by cutting between the second and third connection. This would put the master to the middle connector, as the passage says. It says this arrangement was standardized in later versions, but all the ATA ribbon cables I've seen put the black master connector at the end, and the gray slave in the middle. I think what the passage means to say is that these early hacks had the opposite configuration of modern cables, which just leave gray pin 28 with no wire contact. Someone who understands what this paragraph is trying to say should probably fix it so someone doesn't put their cables on backward. --Loqi T. 02:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I read it as saying

• The most common way of implementing cable select prior to the 80 conductor era (though cable select back then was bloody rare anyway) was to cut one wire between the two device connectors (that is between the master device and the slave device). This put the slave connector in the middle which was undesirable.
• This was standardised in some later version of the ATA spec (not having read the spec I can neither confirm nor deny this), it would also be usefull to know which version.

The next paragraph then goes on to say that this was changed with the introduction of 80 conductor cables which do indeed put the master device at the end.

Personally I have never seen a 40 wire cable that supported cable select.

Size limits

windows limitations

according to http://discountechnology.com/Seagate-160GB-IDE-ATA-100-Hard-Drive:

• windows 2000 up to sp3 have a limitation of 137 GB
• windows xp up to sp1 have a limitation of 137 GB

so we could add it asomewhere
GNUtoo 12:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Found some further info at seagate d17 sata product manual google cache in section 3.8.1:
W2000 Sp3 + XP Sp1 needs "Big Drive Enabler"
Maxtor Knowledge Base Answer ID 960
MS KB 303013
Electron9 23:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Size limits - Win98 64GB

Good article, but too bad it does not list all the size boundaries. This article seems excellent, mentions the Win98 64GB boundary: -69.87.199.99 19:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that restrictions imposed by operating systems belong in an article about the ATA interface and standards, since the ATA interface and standards have nothing to do with these restrictions. Jeh (talk) 22:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we need a page summarising the common PC storage size limits and what part of the system (hardware, bios, OS etc) imposed them. Then linking to the appropriate articles for further details. Plugwash (talk) 22:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Terminology: IDE, ATA, ATAPI, EIDE, etc.

Compatibility

I learned today that at least for 2.5" laptop drives, EIDE is incompatible with SATA, despite apparently being a different version of the same protocol. Could someone explain, in general, which of the protocols in the table are compatible with which others (in either direction)? -- Beland 23:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

And for 3.5" drives too. What is commonly called an IDE or EIDE drive uses a parallel interface. SATA is a serial interface. They are not electrically compatible, even though the commands and responses carried over the interface are the same. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

ATA standards versions, transfer rates, and features

The table says on ATA/ATAPI-7 (ATA-7, Ultra ATA/133) that there is SATA/150. But where is SATA/300 ? It is not listed. -- Frap (no timestamp...)

It's certainly in the Serial ATA article. I'm not sure why SATA/150 is in the table in this article at all. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

AT/ATAPI doesn't describe physical interface anymore - it could be Parallel ATA, Serial ATA or eSATA (and FireWire or USB for that matter), and any ATA/ATAPI drive will still respond to commands defined by the ATA/ATAPI standard (what's more, Serial ATA can also be used to interconnect SCSI devices as in Serial Attached SCSI). --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 21:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

But there is a standard describing the physical connection. As a practical matter a "parallel ATA device" still follows the physical connection standards described in ATA/ATAPI 6. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Compatability between types

I have a laptop with an ATA-4 hard drive. I would like to place a drive with an ATA-6 inside instead. Is that possible? Thanks! (no timestamp...)

Yes. However, assuming that the laptop's interface is ATA-4, your new drive will run no faster than ATA-4 allows and it will be subject to other ATA-4 limitations. A laptop old enough to have an ATA-4 interface may have BIOS issues preventing the use of larger drives, too. We should probably make this clear in the article. Jeh (talk) 04:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Transfer speeds

comparing IDE/ATA speed with others

The speed presented in this article is in MB/s, generally accepted as the abbreviation of Megabyte per second. In the SATA and USB aritcles the speed is presented in Mbits/s (Megabits per second). Could someone check the speed of ATA in Mbits/s please? it is possible it is alredy in megabits but somone did not write it properly. --Iamcon (talk) 07:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The speeds quoted here are the correct numbers for megabytes/second (where mega = 1,000,000). For example, UDMA 5 runs at 100,000,000 bytes/second. I hope this is unambiguous enough.

The reason SATA and USB quote in bits per second is that they are serial protocols: one bit is sent at a time. Parallel ATA is not like that; it sends 16 data bits at a time. In each case these are the "natural" units, according to the respective technologies. They are also the same units and numbers quoted in industry standard specifications and sales information for these interfaces.

You can't just take the PATA number and multiply by eight to get a number comparable with serial protocols, either. SATA uses an encoding involving 10 bits on the wire for eight bits on the disk. The "1.5 Gbit/sec" figure for the original SATA is the bit rate on the wire, not on the disk, and translates to 120 megabytes/second of actual data read or written. USB uses a "bit-stuffing" protocol in which the ratio is not even constant. Jeh (talk) 07:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Bits may be transferred by different means, it still boils down to effective transmission capacity per second. And associated latency. It's much harder to make comparisions when the same thing is noted in different units. Electron9 (talk) 15:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The point I'm making is that "effective transmission capacity per second" is, at least, more accurate for PATA's "133 MB/sec", than for SATA's "1.5 Gb/sec": All issues of latency, inter-block delays, etc., aside, it is possible that there could be periods of time during which PATA would be transferring 133 MB/sec of end user data. This can't be said of SATA's "1.5 Gb/sec". Yes, switching units makes things even more confusing, but it would also be confusing to cite specs for these buses using units other than those commonly quoted. Adding corrections for e.g. 10 physical-layer bits to 8 transport-layer bits would simply compound the confusion, and would likely result in frequent "corrections" by new wiki editors who didn't stop to read the explanations.

I do think it would be worthwhile to "rationalize" all of these specs so that useful comparisons could be made (perhaps in a separate article pointed to by the PATA, SATA, USB, etc., articles), but this should be done in addition to, not instead of, cites of the "official" numbers using the usual units for each. Also it should be done with a LOT of explanation. Jeh (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest then to add a seperate value "effective transfer rate". Electron9 (talk) 07:12, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Major Solutions to AT Attachement; Discussion page

This will answer more of your questions in the dicussion, understand that Misplaced Pages IS NOT A FAQ NOR IS IT A FORUM DISCUSSION AREA. Please provide facts, evidential proof or logical explanations if you have doubts.

I suggested categorizing all of them together, it is getting way to messy.

Warning to Beland: DO NOT USE, Please Improve this article template, this is a discussion. If you do it again I am reporting you to adminastrator.

So I finally understand why is so much confusion and unanswer question and I have made some updates, please read the bottom paragraph before you continues. You'll understand why I decide to made the changes

The things are divided into the following

• IDE & ATA confusion
• The History (include IDE, EIDE, PATA)
  • The PC Age (the concept that you must understand)
  • Revolutionary changes (mobile influences, this is the part that 98% of the people in the university don't understand, I categorize them into 3 part for easier explanation)

Revolutionary Changes will include the following (it mainly is talking about how the ATAPI history is influence and what is actually happening now in the industry)

• Peripherial Influences
• HCI & other mobile interfaces influences including: USB, FireWire, eSATA...etc.
• SSD influences

Note: There is 2 section where I introduce something that I think you should know as a common sense for involvement in the computing industry. Which

• Short History (you must know this)
• pre-Revolution Age (how ZIP drive, Media Drives is related to Multimedia industries and basic concept of why ATAPI didn't incldue this part)

IDE & ATA confusion
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IDE (Integrated Device Electronics) Simply put it Integrated Device Electronics should only refer to add-ons hardware only. The reason why Hard Drive are considered as an IDE is because, Hard Drive itself intially is an essential part of PC that the computer MUST Have. However, since the solution to Storage, you can have a variety of options, instead pre-determined (meaning no options) therefore it is consider an "integrated." The term does seem quite self-contradictory, but it is not really not self-contradictory, becuase if you have no options, than it would be a very big problem for management, thus server wouldn't appear today at all.

Predetermined parts are like processors (where the design is limited, to architecture of the instruction such as Instruction Level Parallelism (aka Parallel Computing), Cluster Computing, Distributed computing...etc, but the changes are only in the internal parts, the external has really change, except for the material they use). The same go with RAM, only material have change.

Knowing what IDE are, let's move onto what is ATA. ATA is actually a 2 part word, AT (Advanced Technology) refer to the cable, Attachment meaning interface. ATAPI means (AT + API) or cable interface.

Now here the part where you HAVE TO FOCUS. IDE (refer to Hard Drive + any other mobile devices) ATAPI (cable interface) ATA (Advanced Technology = cable, Attachment = interface) ---usually in technology the virtual parts always come first before the hardware comes e.g. ATA + EIDE

The History
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the beginning of computer, they are no mobile devices at all, there is only mobile communications, use in the army. If you want to understand it works, you have to understand Telecommunications or you work for NASA space control communication, so its basically rocket science. As time progress PC got invented and thus gradually become a common household products thus mobile product pop-up.

PC Age
IDE In the PC age, the only storage technology avaliable is Hard Drives (HDD), since they don't have the technology to build mobile devices yet, most ppl call the HDD an IDE product. Thus the cable interface was govern by ATAPI (Note Floppy Disks Drive (FDD) is considered a backup feature not a mobile devices, therefore you don't hear people calling a FDD an IDE product.)
---IDE Hard Drives (for BIOS interface uses LBA, ECHS)
---IDE transfer interface uses PIO, DMA
Dominator: Western Digital, Iomgea
---Standard: IDE / ATA Standard

EIDE
Then EIDE pop-up (it work exactly same as EISA), they just extended so it be backward compatible with previous IDE drives. Understand that the term EIDE, is an incorrect naming use by the people in the industry, it is definately not an extension to IDE, IDE only refer to mobile devices, the only reason that HDD is considered IDE, because we need a variety of management solutions. It would be more correctly to called it EATC (Extended Cable (AT) Connector).
---EIDE Hard Drives for BIOS (use primarily ECHS, Int 13h, Int 16)
---transfer interface: Ultra DMA
Dominator: Seagate, Pheonix, Sony / Philips
Minor: Toshiba, Hitachi
--EIDE/ATA-2 Standard

PATA
The term PATA, was not a popular term, not because of popularity. Because PATA (Parllel Cable (AT) Interface), means HDD that uses EIDE ONLY + Word DMA (Parallelism) interace. However, since EIDE was developed to be backward compatible, many manufactureres choose not to produce it, instead in the PATA age, most manufacturerers developed a built-in processor specifically for LBA & ECHS processing to promote the usage of prefetching, smart caching and other types of non-main memory as a way to promote the developement of virtualization beginning.

The end of the PATA age markup a revolutionary change in the industry. Because mobile solutions are discoverd. The ATAPI was accelerated at a unforseen stage of period, from the industry and there was a lot of rising concerns about specifications, certifications and enormous amounts of dispute and arguements. Storage technologies became a huge topics of whether investment should be in processor capabilites, storage interface for management, more technologies implementation or speed?

Short History
Speed in history has not been a major factor at all, since all industry knows that the stability and management of low speeds can overtop faster speed easily, proven in UltraSPARC T2 uses 8 core (parallelism) vs IBM Cell + HP (which uses thousand of cores, base on distributed computing). Cluster Computing are still in research.

Many of the companies want to invest in Parallel computing, but most of them failed due to insufficient money, Sun Microsystems & IBM and possibly HP are the only 3 companies who can still hold on after the majort failure that almost crush their companies in huge amount of debt.)

pre-Revolution Age
(ZIP / Tape Drives) So as PATA age ended, there was a little tide before mobile went into a bloom of cherry blossom. You guess it, it was the zip drives, however, since they are one of the shortest age in the storage history, there wasn't a standard developed, it was more of a hype.

As it ended almost 100% the society forgot them, except the guys in filming and hollywood because following Zipe Drive age came Peripherials + Mobile Flash Memory / NOR memory which has dominated for quite a long time and didn't end until this year was HD-DVD & Blur-ray are considered junk.

Most people don't know that Media Drives actually derived from Zip Drives technology, since the devleopement is mainly in the multimedia industry. However, the subject usually require more than one field of studys, therefore most people didn't understand at all. (e.g. video & audio connector require understanding of Digital, Analog, Sound, VoIP and broadcasting network infrastructure & display (CRT, LCD, Plasma, OLED, touchscreen), display production technologies (Aperture Grille)

by broadcasting network infrastructure I refert to the OSI model. (OSI layer 4 doesn't uses TCP / UDP, OSI layer 2 (physical) they have their own packets, see ATA over Ethernet for details).

(Summary): In most cases, where the specification is more relevant to other industry than the formal industry intended the association usually give the authorities to the World Class Organization such as ISO, World Wide Web Consortium, then the ISO usually would direct it towards small association in the industry such as MPAA or RIAA OR they would work together with the association, but in general ISO is only involve in the authorities process and deals mainly with World Wide problems in engineering section. Ethics and morality are not their responsibilities to enforce it.

Revolutinoary Age (Main
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So when ZIP drive ended. ATAPI was fully recognized, because it contain mobile standards which is originally intended for. The Storage standards divided into 3 parts: Peripherial (or media drive bays) and Mobile Devices. The third part is SSD (but you have understand Peripherial and Mobile Devices first).

Since no mobile technology was developed, management become a concern, and there was a huge demand for mobile devices, many of the chipset manufacturerer and storage technologies try to formulated a solution, which was building Host Controller Interface as a of way of offloading stress on the Southbridge. However, since the mobile competition was at a very strong tension, everybody want to own the market, many association privatize the authorization to make their standard, and that is why OHCI (FireWire of IEEE) & UHCI + EHCI (USB of USB Alliance) have so many problems in their driver. (Remeber this part, it will be referred later)

In the Peripherial, referring to Optical Drives (excluding media cards). Optical Drives is named optical , refers to the lazer technology it has nothing got to do with Fiber Optics. ATAPI was a mess just like Mobile Devices problem. MPAA, RIAA wanted Digital Right Managements, when the technology doesn't exist. (some of you may recall rumors hearing that Japanese invented disc that can't be copied in the music industry). However, no evidence is proven that could work. Note: ATAPI did specific the mini-disc (I think it was called mini-DVD that can fit into your CD/DVD---ROM, R, R+RW, I don't the industry invented Blu-ray. Anyhow, ATAPI suggested that using the previous developed cable interface before going to far all at once, but because many of the companies wanted privatization of authorization of standards for their own industry (referring to multimedia). They develope their own standards which up till now is still very foregin to computer experts who want to understand about multimedia.

Enormous amount of people blamed on the US Hollywood and US Governments for not being repsonbile for world economy. Because the multimedia developement could of easily accelerated since 80% are computer based, however, since the multimedia industry mess up the entire specification, for now it is totally unsure how the specification is going to turn out, unless the Wireless Communication help draw the line.

Proceeding to the disaster of Periphierals, then SATA connector was invented, interesting it join Host Controller Interface (aka AHCI). No one knows why, but many people guessed it was because that SATA could hold infinite drive and not to have a management system would be a disaster. However, the periphieral also got the attention and there was a huge attempt at trying to develop it, though many didn't succeed because they didn't listen to ATAPI which cause a lot of interface problem, thus 98% of them never made it to the market or in any news section on internet nor magazine.

Finally in SSD industry much of the company wanted to develop fast speed hardware to promote the industry before the investement in the interface can be started. Luckily the SSD industry was smart to use media drives interface (e.g. CompactFlash) via the ATAPI DMA interface since, LBA, ECHS and PIO are way too old. For now ATAPI association is still under consideration, because using DRAM for SSD is not a smart idea at all. ATAPI and many other world leaders believe they should develop their own resources, rather than using the resources which is not intended for thus causing uncessary damages (e.g. see Dell notebook incident). However, since HD is gradually becoming a part of consumer demand, it would be very hard to predict the turn out.

I will add File System later, maybe next week.

power connectors for IDE, EIDE

ATAPI

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