Re: Patch(2.4.5): Fix PCMCIA ATA/IDE freeze (w/ PCI add-in cards)

[Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl]

    From: Andre Hedrick <andre@aslab.com>

    You know yourself first and all the screwed up ATAPI products that are
    still using SFF-8020 that has been obsoleted before I start maintaining
    the subsystem three plus years ago. 

Hi Andre -

Why precisely is complying to SFF-8020 broken?
That was the standard. The standard that Microsoft required.
Other people made a different standard, and claimed that theirs
was better or more official or whatever, but reality is that
the products were not manufactured following this so-called
better standard.
You are a good disciple of Hale, but it is no use ignoring the
fact that a very large number of devices was made following SFF-8020.
These devices are not necessarily screwed, they tend to work fine,
although both ATA and ATAPI devices have their quirks.

SFF-8020, later INF-8020, became part of ATA/ATAPI-4 (1998).
The T13 people that merged SFF-8020 and produced ATA/ATAPI-4
changed a few details about how a master is supposed to react
when a nonexistent slave is selected. Nobody really noticed,
and ATA/ATAPI-5 still had the same requirements. But then long
discussions about this difference caused ATA/ATAPI-6 to go back
to the original SFF-8020 requirements. Do you disagree with this
description of history? If you agree then it is not SFF-8020
but ATA/ATAPI-4 and ATA/ATAPI-5 that today must be considered broken
in this respect. I am referring to Section 9.16.1 of these standards.

Maybe there are other things in SFF-8020 that you consider broken?

Andries