SCAM Comments to John Lohmeyer

[JEFFE at fdc.mhs.compuserve.com]

                               - - Mail - - 
         May  4, 1994          4:15pm   MAIL IS -
   FROM: Jeff Epstein                    Urgent      
     TO: SCSI Reflector                  
SUBJECT: SCAM Comments to John Lohmeyer  
   COPY: Mark Woithe                     
         Mark Heppenstall

  John commented that maybe Level 1 Masters should recognize the
presence of Level 2 Masters. I disagree because as Jim McGrath put it,
"Level 1 masters need not know about the Level 2 world".
  I feel John's idea should be the other way around.  Level 2 masters should
learn to live in the Level 1 world.  After all, SCSI-2 hosts learned
to have SCSI-2 devices "live with" SCSI-1 devices.  Now we know that backward
compatibility is very important in the marketplace as well as in the
engineering department.  Thats real evolution, not revolution.
  Actually implementing Level 2 with all of its nuances is likely to cause
more grief than joy.  Level 1 was intended to be the simple "no frills" case
of Automatic SCSI ID assignment.  The intent was to help the
marketplace/user have less to worry about when installing SCSI products
(not just disks) on a basic system.  I think eventually Level 2 will evolve
as soon as Level 1 sinks in and becomes acknowledged as a "good thing" for
the industry.  The marketplace will tell us if we need Multi-Master Level 2
SCAM Host Controllers.