HP CS/80, SS/80 & Amigo Protocols

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Mon Oct 25 16:58:22 1999

Hi Jerome,

  Yes, I have the CS 80 spcification. I think I may have the one for the
Amigo command set as well. I don't have anything on the SS-80 command set
but I'm looking for it.

  I got a message similar to this from someone in Canada. I think he was
also trying to find an altenative to the Bering drives.

At 11:13 AM 10/25/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello:
>
>I saw a message from jeff.kaneko_at_juno.com where it appears he got some
>docs on the CS/80 etc. protocol from you. I think this is the protocol
>used by HP for its HP-IB disks. I suspect that this protocol uses a
>block mode addressing that spans a variety of devices built and sold in
>the 80's and early 90's, incl. some by Bering (an alternate source of
>HP-compatible HP-IB storage products).
>
>I am looking for the disk protocols and command set to see if I can talk
>to these devices with a National Instruments (GP-IB) board in a PC
>running NT with a driver written in a modern high-level language. I
>suspect that the commands are device-independent, as these HP devices
>worked with a broad scope of computers, with very little change in
>configuration.

   Yes, I'm sure you're right. There are three main proto-calls that I'm
aware of, The Amigo, the SS-80 and CS-80. The Amigo is the oldest. It was
replaced by SS-80 and CS-80. SS-80 stands for Sub-Set 80. I assume that
means it's a Sub-set of the CS-80. SS is only used for floppy drives
except for a very few hard drives that used it so that they could be used
on stuff like HP-85s that do not support CS-80. On those systems, SS-80
makes the hard drive appear as several floppy drives.

 Does this sound like the same docs you have? If so, may I
>please get a copy of those docs? I think that they are the same that
>Jeff got from you. I'm in the Seattle area (Redmond) and am willing to
>pay for your trouble photocopying.

   OK I'll have to look for them.
>
>Please give me a call and we can talk. I suspect that some of HP's SCSI
>protocols are similar in structure and would like any thoughts you have
>on this.

  OK. I think I have something on one of HP's SCSI drives. I'll try to
find it too. I'm in Florida and I'll be out this evening but you can call
me at (407) 365-2986. I work out of my home so I'm here most of the time.
Give me a day or two to try and locate the stuff first.

   Joe
>
>Thanks,
>Jerome Hodges
>Strobe Data, Inc.
>8405 165th Ave NE
>Redmond, WA 98052-3913
>Ph. 425-861-4940
>Fax 425-861-4295
>
>
Received on Mon Oct 25 1999 - 16:58:22 BST