These files are out-of-date and not really relevant to the install.

The latest versions are at http://www.ata-atapi.com/hiw.htm.

Discussed with nick@ and jmc@.  ok deraadt@.

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 921 deletions

diff --git a/etc/etc.i386/INSTALL.ata b/etc/etc.i386/INSTALL.ata
deleted file mode 100644
index d0bbde7ac07..00000000000
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-                ATA/ATA-1/ATA-2/IDE/EIDE/etc FAQ
-
-                    Part 1 of ? -- The Basics
-
-                      Version 0b -- 7 Feb 95
-
-             by Hale Landis -- landis@sugs.tware.com
-
-Note:  Major changes from the previous version are marked by a
-   "!" at the left margin on the first line of the changed
-   paragraph.
-
-First the "legal" stuff...
-
-   1) This FAQ is not intended to replace any other FAQ on this
-   subject but is an attempt to provide historical and technical
-   information about the ATA interface.
-
-   2) This FAQ is not an endorsement of any vendor's product(s).
-
-   3) This FAQ is not a recommendation to purchase any vendor's
-   product(s).
-
-   4) Every effort is made to insure that all of the information
-   presented here is not copyrighted, not proprietary and
-   unrestricted.
-
-   4) When opinions are stated they are clearly identified,
-   including the person's name and email address.  Such opinions
-   are offered as long as they contribute to the understanding of
-   the subject being discussed.  No "flames" allowed.
-
-This is the first version of this FAQ.  It will take some time to
-get all the significant information into it so it will be rapidly
-growing and changing during the next several weeks or months.  I
-don't even know how many parts there will be yet!  Versions will
-be numbered with simple integer numbers (no 1.1, 1.2, etc)
-starting at 0.
-
-If you have a question that is not answered here or if you have
-unrestricted material that you would like to contribute, please
-email it to landis@sugs.tware.com.  DO NOT send material that is
-copyrighted, proprietary or otherwise restricted in any way -- I
-can't use such material in this document.
-
-I don't have FTP access to anything at this time so I leave it to
-others to put this at the appropriate FAQ FTP sites.
-
-About myself:  Until recently I worked for Seagate where I was
-one of several people that attended the ATA, ATA-2, PCMCIA and
-SFF meetings for Seagate.  I was also the manager of a software
-development group that created much of the engineering test
-software for ATA hard disk drives.  I am now a consultant and I
-still attend the ATA-2 meetings.
-
-Table of Contents
------------------
-
-Part 1 - The Basics
-
-   Glossary
-   Basic Questions
-
-Part 2 - BIOS and Drivers
-
-   TBD
-
-
-Glossary
---------
-
-Read and understand these terms.  You will be lost and confused
-if you don't!  Many of these are describe in much greater detail
-in other parts of this FAQ.
-
-ATA or AT Attachment
-
-   ATA is the proper and correct name for what most people call
-   IDE.  In this document, ATA refers to all forms of ATA (ATA-1,
-   ATA-2, etc, IDE, EIDE, etc).  The ATA interface uses a single
-   40-conductor cable in most desktop systems.
-
-ATA-1
-
-   ATA-1 is the common name of the original ATA (IDE)
-   specification.  ATA-1 is not an official standard yet.  Final
-   approval is pending.
-
-ATA-2 or ATA Extensions
-
-   ATA-2 is the common name of the new ATA specification.  ATA-2
-   is still in early draft form and has not been submitted for
-   approval as an official standard.
-
-ATA-3
-
-!  ATA-3 is the common name of a future version of the ATA
-   specification.  The ATA-3 working group has held several
-   meeting but the only things adopted so far are a DMA
-   version of the Identify command, a description of
-   "device 1 only configurations" and a set of "security"
-   commands.
-
-!  There is much discussion going on concerning merging ATA-3
-   with ATAPI.  This will require some kind of "command overlap"
-   capability.  The details of this are consuming much of the
-   meeting time.
-
-ATAPI or ATA Packet Interface
-
-   ATAPI is a proposed new interface specification.  Initially it
-   will probably be used for CD-ROM and tape devices.  It uses
-   the ATA hardware interface at the physical level but uses a
-   subset of the SCSI command set at the logical level.  The
-   ATAPI specification work is currently being done in the SFF
-   committee.
-
-!  The ATAPI folks have delayed forwarding their CD-ROM
-   specification from SFF to X3T10 so the X3T10 ATAPI working
-   group has nothing to work on yet and have held no meetings.
-
-! Block Mode
-
-!  Block mode is the name given to the use of the ATA Read
-   Multiple and Write Multiple commands.  These commands generate
-   a single interrupt to the host system for each block of
-   sectors transferred.  The traditional Read Sectors and Write
-   Sectors commands generate an interrupt to the host for each
-   sector transferred.
-
-CAM (Common Access Method) Committee
-
-   The Common Access Method committee, now disbanded, worked on
-   two specifications: the CAM SCSI and CAM ATA specifications.
-   Both specifications were forwarded to the X3T9 committee for
-   further work years ago.
-
-CHS or Cylinder/Head/Sector
-
-   CHS is the old and traditional way to address data sectors on
-   a hard disk.  This style of addressing relates a sector's
-   address to the position of the read/write heads.  In today's
-   ATA devices, all sector addresses used by the host are logical
-   and have nothing to do with the actual physical position of
-   the sector on the media or the actual position of the
-   read/write heads.
-
-Command Block
-Control Block
-
-   These are names given to the I/O register interface used by
-   ATA devices.  It refers to a set of I/O registers, or I/O
-   ports and I/O port addresses used to program the device.
-   These names replace the older term Task File.
-
-DMA or Direct Memory Access
-
-   DMA is a method of data transfer between two devices that does
-   not use the system's main processor as part of the data path.
-   DMA requires lots of hardware:  a DMA arbitration unit, a DMA
-   data transfer unit and host bus signals that enable the DMA
-   controller to assume control of the host system's bus.  When
-   the DMA controller has control of the host system's bus, it
-   moves data between the two devices by generating the
-   appropriate bus read/write cycles.  For the ATA READ DMA
-   command this means generating an I/O read cycle and then a
-   memory write cycle for each 16-bit word being transferred.
-   For the ATA WRITE DMA command, a memory read cycle is followed
-   by an I/O write cycle for each 16-bit word transferred.
-
-EIDE or Enhanced IDE
-
-   EIDE is a marketing program started by Western Digital to
-   promote certain ATA-2 features including ATAPI.  WD has
-   encouraged other product vendors to mark their products as
-   "EIDE compatible" or "EIDE capable".
-
-ESDI
-
-   See MFM.
-
-Fast ATA
-
-   Fast ATA is a Seagate marketing program used to promote
-   certain ATA-2 features in newer ATA devices.  Seagate has
-   encouraged other product vendors to mark their products as
-   "Fast ATA compatible" or "Fast ATA capable".
-
-Host or Host System
-
-   The computer system that the ATA device is attached to.
-
-HBA or Host Bus Adapter or Host Adapter
-
-   The hardware that converts host bus signals to/from ATA
-   interface signals.  An ATA-1 host adapter is generally a very
-   simple piece of hardware.  An ATA-2 host adapter can be simple
-   or complex.
-
-IDE
-
-   IDE can mean any number of things:  Imbedded Device (or Drive)
-   Electronics (yes, you can spell embedded with an "i"),
-   Intelligent Device (or Drive) Electronics, etc.  The term IDE
-   is the trademark of someone (Western Digital does not claim
-   IDE as theirs but they do claim EIDE).  Many hard disk vendors
-   do not use IDE to describe their products to avoid any
-   trademark conflicts.
-
-LBA or Logical Block Addressing
-
-   LBA is a newer (for ATA it is newer) way to address data
-   sectors on a hard disc.  This style of addressing uses a
-   28-bit binary number to address a sector.  LBA numbers start
-   at zero.  In today's ATA devices, all sector addresses used by
-   the host are logical and have nothing to do with the actual
-   physical location of the sector on the media.
-
-Local Bus
-
-   Usually this refers to the processor's local bus in a high
-   performance computer system.  Usually the processor, the
-   external processor instruction/data cache, the main memory
-   controller and the bridge controller for the next low speed
-   system bus, for example, a PCI bus, are located on the local
-   bus.  Lower speed local buses may have connectors that allow
-   the attachment of other devices.  For example, the VL-Bus is a
-   local bus that can allow attachment of video, SCSI or ATA
-   controllers.  It is very difficult to attach other devices to
-   high speed (say faster than 100MHz) local buses due to
-   electrical restrictions that come into play at those higher
-   speeds.
-
-Master
-
-   ATA device 0.  Device 0, the master, is the "master" of
-   nothing.  See Slave.
-
-Megabyte or MB
-
-   Megabyte or MB is 1,000,000 bytes or 10^6 bytes.  IT IS NOT
-   1,048,576 bytes or 2^20 bytes, repeat NOT!
-
-MFM
-
-   In this document MFM refers to any of the older hard disk
-   controller interfaces, MFM, RLL and ESDI.  It is used to
-   describe any hard disk controller that uses the Task File
-   interface on the host side and the ST506/ST412 interface
-   on the drive side.
-
-OS
-
-   Operating System.
-
-PC Card ATA
-PCMCIA
-
-   We can thank the Personal Computer Memory Card International
-   Association for the PC Card specification.  The PCMCIA is a
-   nonprofit industry association.  The PC Card ATA
-   specification is another form of the ATA interface used by
-   PCMCIA compatible ATA devices.  This interface uses the PCMCIA
-   68-pin connector.  Most 68-pin ATA devices are dual mode --
-   they can operate as either a PCMCIA PC Card ATA device or as a
-   68-pin ATA device.
-
-PCI
-
-   We can thank Intel and the other members of the PCI committee
-   for the PCI bus specification.  PCI is intended to be the next
-   high performance computer bus.  PCI is not generally described
-   as a processor local bus.
-
-PIO or Programmed Input/Output
-
-   PIO is a method of data transfer between two devices that uses
-   the system's main processor as part of the data path.  On
-   x86 systems, the REP INS and REP OUT instructions
-   implement this data transfer method.  INS reads and I/O port
-   and writes the data into memory.  OUTS reads data from memory
-   and writes the data to an I/O port.  Each time an INS or OUTS
-   instruction is executed, the memory address is updated.  The
-   REP prefix causes the instructions to be repeated until a
-   counter reaches zero.
-
-RLL
-
-   See MFM.
-
-Slave
-
-   ATA device 1.  Device 1, the slave, is a "slave" to nothing.
-   See Master.
-
-Task File
-
-   This is the name given to the I/O register interface used by
-   MFM controllers.  It refers to a set of I/O registers, or I/O
-   ports and I/O port addresses used to program the controller.
-   In ATA, this name has been replaced by the terms Command Block
-   and Control Block.
-
-SCSI
-
-   See the SCSI FAQ.
-
-SFF or Small Form Factor
-
-   The SFF committee is an ad hoc committee formed by most of the
-   major storage device and system vendors to set standards for
-   the physical layout of hard disk and other devices.  SFF has
-   published many specifications that describe the physical
-   mounting and connector specifications for hard disk devices,
-   including ATA devices.  During a brief period of time when the
-   X3T9 committee was not doing much work on the ATA-1 interface,
-   the SFF committee published several specifications that were
-   not really part of the original SFF charter.  Most, if not
-   all, of these nonphysical specifications have now been
-   incorporated into the latest X3T9 or X3T10 ATA specifications.
-   ATAPI is currently an SFF specification.
-
-ST506 and ST412
-
-   This is the common name for the hard disk controller to hard
-   disk drive interface used by MFM, RLL and ESDI controllers and
-   disk drives.  ST stands for Seagate Technology.  The ST506 and
-   ST412 were the Seagate products that set the de facto
-   standards for this interface many years ago.  This interface
-   is composed of two cables:  a 34-conductor and a 20-conductor
-   cable.
-
-VESA and VL-Bus
-
-   We can thank the Video Electronics Standards Association for
-   the VESA Local Bus or VL-Bus specification.  The VL-Bus is one
-   example of a local bus.  VESA is a nonprofit industry
-   association like the PCMCIA.
-
-WG or Working Group
-
-   The actual work on various specifications and standards
-   documents within the X3T9, X3T10 and SFF committees happens in
-   working group meetings.  Most WG meetings are held monthly.
-
-X3T9 and X3T10
-
-   These are the names of the official standards committees that
-   have worked on the ATA-1 and ATA-2 specifications.  X3T9 was
-   responsible for the SCSI and ATA-1 specifications and
-   standards.  X3T10 has replaced X3T9 and is now responsible for
-   the current SCSI and ATA specifications and standards work.
-
-528MB
-
-   This term is used in this document to describe the capacity
-   boundary that exists in most x86 system software.  This
-   boundary limits the size of an ATA disk drive to 528MB.  For
-   cylinder/head/sector style addressing of disk data sectors,
-   this number is computed as follows:
-
-   a) the number of cylinders are limited to 1024, numbered
-   0-1023.
-
-   b) the number of heads (per cylinder) are limited to 16,
-   numbered 0-15,
-
-   c) the number of sectors (per track) are limited to 63,
-   numbered 1-63.
-
-   d) a sector is 512 bytes,
-
-   e) 528MB means the following values:
-
-      ( 1024 * 16 * 63 ) or 1,032,192 data sectors
-
-      or
-
-      ( 1024 * 16 * 63 * 512 ) or 528,482,304 bytes.
-
-68-pin ATA
-
-   This refers to a variation of the ATA interface that uses the
-   PCMCIA 68-pin physical interface but does not use the PCMCIA
-   electrical or logical interface.  Most 68-pin ATA devices are
-   dual mode -- they can operate as either a PCMCIA PC Card ATA
-   device or as a 68-pin ATA device.  This interface was
-   developed within the SFF committee and is now included in
-   ATA-2.
-
-Basic Questions
----------------
-
-### Where did ATA come from?
-
-   What we now call the ATA-1 interface was developed for Compaq
-   many years ago by Imprimus (then part of CDC, now part of
-   Seagate) and Western Digital.  The first ATA-1 hard disk
-   drives were made by Imprimus but it was Conner that made the
-   interface so popular.
-
-### How is ATA different from MFM?
-
-   From the host software standpoint, ATA is very much like the
-   Task File interface used by MFM controllers.  A properly
-   written host software driver should not notice any difference
-   between the MFM Task File interface and the ATA Command Block
-   interface while doing basic commands such as Read/Write
-   Sectors.
-
-   At the hardware level, ATA uses a single cable between a host
-   bus adapter and the ATA device, where the MFM controller
-   interface uses two cables between the controller and the
-   drive.
-
-   In the MFM environment, the controller is one piece of
-   hardware and the drive another piece of hardware.  Most likely
-   these two pieces of hardware are from different vendors.  The
-   MFM controller is dependent on the design of both the host bus
-   and on the drive.
-
-   In the ATA environment, the host adapter is the one piece of
-   hardware that is dependent on the host system bus design.  The
-   ATA interface is (mostly) system independent.  All of the
-   hard disk controller and drive logic is contained in the ATA
-   device hardware.  This gives the hard disk designer complete
-   control over both the controller and drive functions.
-
-### Why is ATA so popular?
-
-   Two basic things make ATA so popular today:  cost and hard
-   disk drive technology.  An ATA-1 host adapter is cheap,
-   usually much less than $25US and it uses only one cable.  On
-   the technology side, current hard disk features, such as,
-   defect handling, error recovery, zone recording, cache
-   management and power management require that the controller be
-   fully integrated with the read/write channel, the servo system
-   and spindle hardware of the disk drive.
-
-### What are the basics of the ATA interface?
-
-   The ATA interface is a very simple interface based on an ISA
-   bus I/O device architecture.  The interface consists of two
-   sets of I/O registers, mostly 8-bit, for passing command and
-   status information.  The registers are like a set of mail
-   boxes with a door on front and back connected such that both
-   doors can not be open at the same time.  The front door is
-   open when the Busy bit in the Status register is zero and the
-   host can read and write the registers.  The back door is open
-   when the Busy bit in the Status register is one and the ATA
-   device can read or write the registers.
-
-   The physical interface contains just enough signals for a 16
-   bit data bus, five register address bits, and a few control
-   signals like read register, write register and reset.
-
-   ATA devices look like traditional hard disk
-   drives even though some are not really a hard disc with
-   rotating platters.  User data is recorded in 512 byte sectors.
-   Each sector has a sector address.  There are two ways to
-   express sector addresses:  by cylinder/head/sector (CHS) or by
-   logical block address (LBA).  CHS is standard, LBA is optional.
-
-### What is EIDE or Fast ATA?
-
-   Both are marketing programs used to promote various ATA-2
-   features, mostly the faster data transfer rates defined by
-   ATA-2.
-
-   ---
-
-   WD defines EIDE as:
-
-   * Support for drives larger than 528MB.
-
-   * Support for two connectors to allow up to four drives.
-
-   * Support for CD-ROM and tape peripherals.
-
-   * Support for 11.1/16.6 Mbytes/second, I/O Channel Ready PIO
-     data transfers.
-
-   * Support for 13.3/16.6 Mbytes/second, DMA data transfers.
-
-   ---
-
-???Seagate defines Fast ATA as:
-
-   * Support for PIO mode 3 (11.1 MB/sec) and DMA mode 1(13.3
-     MB/sec).
-
-   * Support for Multi-sector [Read/Write Multiple] transfers.
-
-   * Support for >528 MB.
-
-   * Support for Identify Drive Extensions & Set Transfer Mode
-     Extensions.
-
-   * Backward compatibility with ATA-1.
-
-   ---
-
-   What does all of this mean to us?
-
-   Support for the ATA-2 high speed PIO and DMA data transfer
-   modes is both a hardware and software issue.
-
-   Support for more than one hard disc controller (or ATA host
-   adapter) requires the BIOS and/or the operating system to
-   support more than one Task File or Command/Control Block
-   register set on the host bus.
-
-   The 528MB problem is due to the original design of the x86
-   BIOS which limits cylinders to 1024 and sectors to 63.  The
-   ATA interface allows up to 65,535 cylinders, 16 heads and 255
-   sectors -- that's about 136GB (137GB if is LBA is used).
-   Support for devices over 528MB requires the BIOS and/or
-   operating system to support some form of CHS translation.
-   Note that LBA alone does not solve this problem (in fact,
-   LBA may make things more complex).
-
-   Support for CD-ROM and tape will probably be done via the
-   ATAPI interface which uses a different command structure than
-   ATA.  That makes ATAPI another host software issue.
-
-### What does an ATA-1 host adapter do?
-
-   An ATA-1 host adapter is a simple piece of logic whose main
-   purpose is to reduce the system bus address lines from 12 (or
-   more) down to 5. It may also buffer some signals giving some
-   degree of electrical isolation between the host bus (usually
-   an ISA or EISA bus) and the ATA bus.  In ATA-1, the ATA
-   interface is controlled directly by the host bus so that all
-   timings are controlled by the host bus timing.
-
-### What does an ATA-2 host adapter do?
-
-   This answer is complex because it depends on how smart your
-   ATA-2 host adapter is.  First, an ATA-2 host adapter supports
-   the ATA-2 higher speed data transfer rates.  That requires
-   that the host adapter is attached to something other than an
-   ISA or EISA bus.  Second, an ATA-2 host adapter may perform
-   32-bit wide transfers on the host bus.  This requires FIFO
-   logic and data buffers in the host adapter.  Third, an ATA-2
-   host adapter may use a different data transfer protocol on the
-   host side than is used on the ATA device side.
-
-! ### Can I put an ATA-2 device on an ATA-1 host adapter?
-! ### Can I put an ATA-1 device on an ATA-2 host adapter?
-
-   The answer to both questions is yes, as long as the electrical
-   timing specifications of the device are not violated.  In
-   general it is impossible for an ATA-1 host adapter to violate
-   the specifications of an ATA-2 device.  It is possible for an
-   ATA-2 host adapter to violate the timing specifications of an
-   ATA-1 device but this is not common.  However, host adapter
-   hardware design errors or software driver bugs can cause such
-   a problem.  The result will be corrupted data read or written
-   to the ATA-1 device.
-
-! ### I have an ATA-2 host adapter with an ATA-2 device.  I want to
-! ### add an ATA-1 device to this host adapter.  Can I run the ATA-2
-! ### device in its ATA-2 data transfer modes?
-
-   Sorry, *NO* you can *NOT* run the new drive in its faster data
-   transfer modes.  Be very careful, most of the ATA-2 host
-   adapter vendors don't have anything in their setup
-   documentation or software to prevent this sort of thing.
-
-   When you run the new drive at a data transfer speed that is
-   faster than the older drive can support, you are violating the
-   electrical interface setup and hold times on the older drive.
-   There is no telling what the older drive will do about this,
-   but you are asking for data corruption and other nasty
-   problems on your older drive.
-
-### How many disk controllers and/or ATA host adapters and/or
-### SCSI host adapters can I put in my system?
-
-   From a hardware standpoint -- as many as you want as long as
-   there are no I/O port address, memory address or interrupt
-   request signal conflicts.  From a software standpoint it is a
-   whole different story.
-
-   First the simple x86 system hard disk controller
-   configurations...
-
-   a) 1 ATA with 1 or 2 drives at I/O port addresses
-   1Fxh/3Fxh using interrupt request 14 (IRQ14).
-
-   b) 1 ATA with 1 drive at I/O port addresses 1Fxh/3Fxh
-   using interrupt request 14 (IRQ14) plus a SCSI with 1 drive.
-
-   c) 1 SCSI with 1 or 2 drives.
-
-   Other configurations are possible but are most likely not
-   supported in the system or SCSI host adapter BIOS.  And if its
-   not supported at the BIOS level, it is unlikely to be
-   supported by an operating system, especially DOS.  The primary
-   reason the above configurations are so restrictive is that the
-   original IBM x86 BIOS supported only one MFM controller with a
-   maximum of 2 drives.  This restriction was then coded into
-   much x86 software including many early version of DOS.  The
-   configurations above work because they don't break this old
-   rule.
-
-   Just remember this -- most systems will always boot from
-   the first drive on the first controller.  In a) that is
-   ATA drive 0, in b) that is ATA drive 0, in c) that is
-   SCSI drive 0.
-
-   And now the more complex configurations...
-
-   Once you go beyond the three configurations above all bets are
-   off.  Most likely you will need operating system device
-   drivers in order to access any drives beyond the first two.
-   And now your real problems start especially if you like to run
-   more than one operating system!
-
-   If you do run more than one OS, then you need equivalent
-   drivers for each system if you would like to access all the
-   drives.  Plus it would be nice if all the drivers configured
-   the drives in the same manner and supported all the possible
-   partitioning schemes and partition sizes.  It would be
-   especially nice if a driver would not destroy the data in a
-   partition just because it did not understand the file system
-   format in that partition.
-
-   One of the things EIDE promotes is BIOS support for up to four
-   ATA devices -- 2 ATA host adapters each with 1 or 2 drives.
-   The first would be at I/O port addresses 1Fxh/3Fxh using
-   interrupt request 14 (IRQ14) and the second at I/O port
-   addresses 17xh/37xh using interrupt request 15 (IRQ15).
-   Acceptance of this configuration has not been spreading like
-   wild fire through the BIOS world.
-
-   Lets look at a two complex configurations...
-
-   a) 1 ATA with 2 drives and 1 SCSI with 1 or more drives.
-
-   Nice configuration.  The ATA drives would be supported by the
-   system BIOS and the SCSI drives may be, could be, should be,
-   supported by the SCSI host adapter BIOS but probably not.  So
-   in order to use the 2 SCSI drives you probably have to disable
-   the BIOS on the SCSI card and then load a device driver in
-   CONFIG.SYS.  And because the SCSI BIOS is disabled, you then
-   need a SCSI driver for that other OS you run.
-
-   b) 2 ATA with 1 or 2 drives on each.
-
-   Also a nice configuration.  But because the system BIOS
-   probably only supports the first controller address, you'll
-   need a DOS device driver loaded in CONFIG.SYS in order to
-   access the drives on the second controller.  You'll need that
-   driver even if there is only one drive on the first
-   controller.  You also need a similar driver to support the
-   second controller in your other OS.
-
-   Note:  I understand that OS/2 does support both MFM/ATA
-   controller addresses and does allow up to four drives -- I
-   have not confirmed this for myself.
-
-! ### Are disk drives the only ATA devices?
-
-   No.  Over the years there have been ATA tape drives, ATA
-   CD-ROMS and other strange devices.  Most of these are expected
-   to be added to an existing ATA host adapter as the second
-   device (device 1) with an existing ATA disk drive (device 0).
-   In general these require software drivers to operate with your
-   OS.
-
-   Now, we have ATAPI CD-ROM and tape devices that can be placed
-   on an ATA host adapter.  And soon we should see system
-   motherboard BIOS support for booting from an ATAPI CD-ROM
-   device.  The general idea is that an ATAPI device can coexist
-   with an ATA device on the same cable.
-
-! ### What can be done to improve ATA device performance?
-
-   A difficult question.  But the first step is usually to reduce
-   the number of interrupts that the host sees during a read or
-   write command.  ATA disk drives have three types of read/write
-   commands:
-
-   * Read Sectors / Write Sectors -- These commands are the old
-   traditional data transfer commands.  These commands generate
-   one interrupt to the host for each sector transferred.  These
-   are PIO data in and PIO data out commands which use the host
-   processor to transfer the data.
-
-   * Read Multiple / Write Multiple -- These commands where
-   defined in ATA-1 but were not used very much until recently.
-   These commands generate one interrupt to the host for each
-   block of sectors transferred.  The number of sector per block
-   is generally 4, 8 or 16.  However, when 1 sector per block is
-   used, these commands are the same as the Read/Write Sectors
-   commands.  These are PIO data in and PIO data out commands
-   which use the host processor to transfer the data.
-
-   * Read DMA / Write DMA -- These commands where defined in
-   ATA-1 but were not used very much until recently.  The main
-   reason for not using them was that x86 system DMA transfer
-   rates are much slower than PIO.  However, these command do
-   generate a single interrupt at the completion of the command.
-
-   Now see the next question...
-
-! ### What else can be done to improve ATA device performance?
-! ### -or-
-! ### What is PIO mode "x" ?
-
-   An even more difficult question.  The second step is usually
-   to increase the rate at which the host transfers data.
-
-   (Ahh...  I can see the funny look on your face from here.  You
-   are saying to yourself:  "the rate at which the host transfers
-   data? doesn't this guy have things backwards?"  Read on...)
-
-   The rate at which data is transferred to or from an ATA device
-   is determined by only one thing:  the PIO or DMA cycle time
-   the host uses.  No, the drive does not have much to do with
-   this!  The only requirement is that the host not exceed the
-   minimum PIO or DMA cycle times that the device supports.  For
-   example, during a PIO read command when the device signals an
-   interrupt to the host this means that the device is waiting
-   for the host to read the next sector or block of sectors from
-   the drive.  The host must execute a REP INSW instruction to do
-   transfer the data.  The rate at which the host executes this
-   instruction determines the PIO cycle time.  Technically, for a
-   read command, the cycle time is the time from the host
-   assertion of the I/O Read signal to the next time the host
-   asserts the I/O Read signal.
-
-   Be careful when looking at the table below -- the data rate is
-   the data transfer rate achieved while transferring the sector
-   or block or sectors.  It is an "instantaneous" data rate.  The
-   overall data transfer rate for a command includes many time
-   consuming events such as the amount of time the host requires
-   to process an interrupt.  Note that on many fast ATA drives
-   today, the time it takes the host to process an interrupt is
-   frequently greater than the time required to transfer the
-   sector of block of sectors for that interrupt!  It is not
-   uncommon for the host overhead to reduce the data rate to 1/2
-   or 1/3 of the instantaneous rate shown here.
-
-   The ATA PIO modes are defined as follows:
-
-   PIO   min cycle  data  comment
-   mode    time     rate
-
-    0      ???ns     ?MB  the rate at which a system
-                          running at 4.77MHZ could
-                          execute the REP INSW.
-
-    1      ???ns     ?MB  the rate at which a system
-                          running at 6MHz could
-                          execute the REP INSW.
-
-    2      240ns     8MB  the rate at which a system
-                          running at 8MHz could
-                          execute the REP INSW.
-
-    3      180ns    13MB  requires an ATA-2
-                          host adapter.
-
-    4      120ns    16MB  requires an ATA-2
-                          host adapter.
-
-   The complete description of the PIO (and DMA modes is much
-   more complex and will be cover in more detail later in this
-   FAQ.
-
-### Do I need BIOS or OS drivers to support more than 528MB?
-
-   Warning:  Read the previous question before reading this one.
-
-   Maybe, probably, yes.  The answer to this *very* complex and
-   will be discussed in detail in Part 2. Here is the brief
-   answer...
-
-   A traditional x86 system BIOS supports only CHS mode
-   addressing with cylinders limited to 1024, heads limited to 16
-   and sectors limited to 63.  This allows addressing of drives
-   up to 528MB.  These limitations come from the INT 13
-   read/write calls that combine a 10-bit cylinder number with a
-   6-bit sector number into a 16-bit register.
-
-   Note that this is entirely a software problem:  the ATA
-   interface supports up to 65,535 cylinders, 16 heads and 255
-   sectors.
-
-   While the head number usually requires only 4-bits, up to 6 or
-   8 bits are available in the INT 13 interface.  This fact has
-   allowed the SCSI folks to support big drives by increasing the
-   number of heads above 16.  The SCSI host adapter BIOS converts
-   this "fake" CHS address to a different CHS or an LBA when it
-   issues a read/write command to the drive.  The following table
-   shows some approximate drives sizes and the "fake" CHS
-   parameters that you may see from a SCSI BIOS:
-
-      cyl    head    sector   size
-
-      1024     16        63   512MB
-      1024     32        63     1GB
-       512     64        63     1GB
-      1024     64        63     2GB
-      1024    256        63     8GB
-
-   The last entry represents the largest possible drive that
-   a traditional INT 13 BIOS can support.
-
-   The system BIOS folks *must* start supporting drives over
-   528MB in their BIOS by implementing some type of CHS
-   translation.  To date, few systems have such BIOS.  And here
-   is the bad part:  Microsoft says that the BIOS *must*
-   support it in order to use it in their OS.  The algorithm is
-   simple (but warning:  this is not the complete algorithm!):
-
-      INT 13 input    action            ATA interface
-
-      cyl number      "multiply" by n   modified cyl number
-      head number     "divide" by n     modified head number
-      sector number   nothing           sector number
-
-   The value of n must be selected such that the modified head
-   number is less than 16.
-
-   LBA addressing at the hard disk drive level or at the BIOS or
-   driver level is another solution.  This solution will probably
-   not be popular for several more years.  It requires that the
-   BIOS people implement a new INT 13 interface, called the
-   Microsoft/IBM Extensions and that the OS people start using
-   this new BIOS interface.  Few system BIOS support this
-   alternative interface today.  Without this new interface, LBA
-   support at the hard disk drive level is not required.
-
-   So most of us have older systems without much possibility of
-   getting a BIOS upgrade, so what do we do?  Well we must obtain
-   one of the many driver products that are on the market that
-   live in one of the disk boot sectors and "take over" the
-   system BIOS INT 13 with an INT 13 that supports the
-   translation.  The biggest problem with this is that the
-   replacement INT 13 BIOS must live someplace in memory.  For
-   DOS based systems, it can usually live at the top of the 640K
-   of memory and DOS is made to think that that part of memory,
-   usually around 8K bytes, does not exist.  But the protected
-   mode OS's don't like this and usually wipe out the driver when
-   they load their kernel.  So if you plan to run multiple OS's
-   on your system, buyer beware!
-
-   Then there is the Windows problem:  the standard FastDisk
-   driver in Windows does *not* support such translation schemes
-   and can not be enabled.  So make sure the driver you
-   purchase also comes with a Windows FastDisk replacement.
-
-   Buyer beware!
-
-### Do I need BIOS or OS drivers to support the ATA-2 data
-### transfer rates?
-
-   Warning:  Read the previous two questions before reading this
-   one.
-
-   Maybe, probably, yes.  The answer to this *very* complex and
-   will be discussed in detail in Part 2. Here is the brief
-   answer...
-
-   If you have a new ATA drive that supports the advanced PIO or
-   DMA data transfer rates (ATA-2 PIO Mode 3 or 4, or, ATA-2 DMA
-   Mode 1 or 2) then you also must have a new ATA host adapter
-   that attaches to the VL-Bus or PCI bus or some other high
-   speed bus (probably a 32-bit bus) in your system.  That host
-   adapter has I/O registers of its own that are used to control
-   its advanced features.  Controlling those advanced features
-   requires software -- either in the system INT 13 BIOS or in a
-   INT 13 BIOS on the host adapter card or in a driver loaded
-   via the boot record or later by your OS.
-
-   Depending on how that host adapter works you may also
-   need a Windows FastDisk replacement in order to use the high
-   speed data transfer modes in Windows.
-
-   Buyer beware!
-
-### I just purchased a new high speed host adapter for my VL-Bus
-### (or PCI bus) system and a new 540MB hard disk.  How do I get
-### full use out of all this new hardware?
-
-   Did you read the previous three questions?
-
-   You need BIOS or driver software and a Windows FastDisk
-   replacement.  These *must* support both CHS translation
-   (because your drive is over 528MB) and the host adapter
-   hardware (to use the high speed data transfer rates).
-
-   Some drivers on the market today use LBA addressing on the
-   ATA interface to get over 528MB.  This may make your disk
-   partition(s) unreadable by another OS.
-
-   Check the hardware and software specifications of the product
-   before you buy it!  Ask lots of questions -- you probably get
-   lots of incorrect or misleading answers -- be prepared for
-   that!  If you plan to run something other than DOS and
-   Windows, especially if you plan a "dual boot" or "boot
-   manager" environment, be real careful.
-
-   Buyer beware!
-
-   OPINION:  I know of only one product that supports all of this
-   new hardware, supports over 528MB *and* supports most of the
-   current OS's that are shipping including several in shipping
-   in beta form.  The product is from a small two person company
-   that is trying to sell the product on an OEM basis and not in
-   the retail market.  - Hale Landis <landis@sugs.tware.com>
-
-/end part 1/
---
-\\===============\\=======================\\
- \\  Hale Landis  \\      303-548-0567     \\
- // Niwot, CO USA // landis@sugs.tware.com //
-//===============//=======================//