SCSI info / summary wanted

[Scott Smyers]

In article <8770 at brazos.Rice.edu> doug at .gps.caltech.edu (Doug Neuhauser) 
writes:
> I am looking for documentation on the SCSI standard, and in particular,
> SCSI disk information.  I'd like to have a better feel for what exactly
> goes on during a seek, read, and write transaction on SCSI disks drives.
> Does anyone have any suggestions for a reading list?

Although it may look dry and imposing, the ANSI SCSI-2  spec is actually a
good reference for information about the SCSI side of things.  For your
purposes, chapter 6.4 entitled "command examples" would probably give you
some background on what a disk drive is allowed to do during a SCSI read
operation.  Section 8.1.12.1 gives some background about what a SCSI disk
drive is.  You might also read sections 8.2.5 and 8.2.6 which describe the
SCSI read command for a direct access device.

Once you've digested all that, in appendix C section C.2 there is a SCSI
read command example which I think is rather illustrative.  It walks you
through all the things that the initiator does to issue the command, and
what the disk drive does as far as seeking, reading and transferring data,
and possibly disconnecting.

In case you don't have a SCSI-2 spec, you can get one by writing to:

Global Engineering Documents
2805 McGaw
Irvine, CA 92714
(800) 854-7179 or (714) 261-1455
reference document X3.131-198X
I think the latest revision is 10C, but I'm not sure.