Re: Just a couple of things.

[Claus Brod <clausb@hpbeo79.bbn.hp.com>]

> Filesystems would layer above this model. As the Falcon SCSI and TT SCSI are
> mutually exclusive they could use the same virtual device numbers. Devices
> would be numbered in the same way as Atari does, ie. ACSI are 0-7 and SCSI
> are 8-15.
> 
> To do this I'll need to get information on the following:-
> 
> (a) SCSI commands
> (b) TT SCSI chip programming
> (c) Falcon SCSI hardware addresses and programming

You're reinventing the wheel here. It would be much more efficient
in terms of developping time if we could agree on an XHDI extension
which allows to send ACSI/SCSI commands to the hard disk driver.
This way, you would only have to write the device driver interface
code and wouldn't have to care about low-level stuff. 

The only problem here is that you need a hard disk driver that offers
such a service. Atari will certainly not update their hard disk driver
in that direction, and I don't think that ICD offers a full XHDI
interface. Therefore I have the following suggestion:

A few years ago, I wrote a hard disk driver of my own, called CBHD.
It has been published as part of a book that I wrote ("Scheibenkleister"),
together with other hard disk maintenance software. At the time,
the book and the driver were very successful in Germany.

In the meantime, the book is out of print, and I don't have the
time to offer a full-blown support for the hard disk driver.
I know, however, that it is quite good; it's fast (I believe
it is the fastest of them all 8-), reliable (thousands of users
have tested it with quite a lot of configurations), and in the
meantime it has also become a little more modular so that it can 
be extended more easily. I don't want this piece of software just 
lie around on my hard disk. If there's enough interest, I would be willing
to give this hard disk driver into the public domain, under similar
terms as other MiNT-related software and MiNT itself so that other
people could hack it up and extend it. I have prepared the driver
for XHDI support, but only two or three XHDI functions are implemented
right now. It's not that tricky to add the other ones, though.
I just don't have the time for it. I would be willing, though,
to coordinate releases, i.e. collect, check and send out patches,
at least in the beginning until I have found out whether this
is manageable or not.

So if you think a PD hard disk driver would be a good idea, please
say so. I need some support for it, and I won't release CBHD into
the public domain if I don't know that there will be some people
who will actually add value to it and use it. 

Let me know what you think!

--clausb@hpbeo79.bbn.hp.com-----------------------------------------------
Claus Brod, MDD, HP Boeblingen         Have you hugged your manager today?
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