Doc. No.: PR/96-081
NEWS RELEASE

 X3 Announces the Results of the Public Comment Period 
for X3.298:199x, AT Attachment Interface (ATA-3) 



Washington D.C., October 1996 - Accredited Standards Committee X3, 
Information Technology announces the results of the public comment 
period for X3.298:199x which closed September 17, 1996.  Development 
of this draft standard is being done in technical committee X3T13, AT 
Attachment.
 
This draft standard specifies the AT Attachment Interface between host 
systems and storage devices.  It provides a common attachment interface 
for system manufacturers, system integrators, software suppliers, and 
suppliers of intelligent storage devices.  The application environment for 
the AT Attachment Interface is any host system that has storage devices 
contained within the processor enclosure.  This standard defines the 
connectors and cables for physical interconnection between host and 
storage device, as well as, the electrical and logical characteristics of the 
interconnecting signals.  It also defines the operational registers within the 
storage device, and the commands and protocols for the operation of the 
storage device.

This standard maintains a high degree of compatibility with the AT 
Attachment Interface with Extensions (ATA-2) standard, X3.279:199x, and 
while providing additional functions, is not intended to require changes to 
presently installed devices or existing software.

As part of the effort to delete obsolete functionality from the ATA 
standard, during the development of the ATA-3 draft proposed Standard, 
X3T13 removed the definition of 8-bit data transfers. As a result of the X3 
Public Review of X3.298:199x it was noted that the timing description for 
8-bit register reads and writes had inadvertently also been removed.  This 
was totally an editorial error and did not reflect the intent of the Technical 
Committee X3T13.

Based upon the results of the public review X3T13 has corrected the 
editorial error by restoring the  timing for 8-bit register reads and writes  
in Revision 7a as they were defined before the inadvertent removal. 

Submit any questions you may have about the correction of this editorial 
error to:  X3 Secretariat, 1250 Eye Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC  
20005.  Email:  lbarra@itic.nw.dc.us.  Send a copy to: ANSI, Attn.:  BSR 
Center, 11 West 42nd St., New York, NY  10036.

Copies of Revision 7a of this draft with the editorial corrections can be 
purchased from Global Engineering Documents, 15 Inverness Way East, 
Englewood, CO  80112-5704.  1-800-854-7179 or 303-792-2181.