buck@siswat.UUCP (A. Lester Buck) (08/07/89)
I have come across a cheap way to obtain copies of some ANSI/ISO standards
and I thought I should spread the word to people on a budget. I would urge
everyone not to abuse this source, since a flood of requests could easily
kill this for everyone.
The European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) reprints quite a few
of the ANSI/ISO standards as ECMA standards. ECMA will send you a copy of
any of their standards at no charge (i.e., free). For example, the CD-ROM
volume and file structure standard, ISO 9660, costs about $50 from ANSI.
The equivalent ECMA standard, ECMA-119, is available at no charge on
request. I think this duplication stems from the use of the ISO "fast
track" standardization process, whereby, if some recognized standards body
publishes a proposed standard, it can be approved by ISO in much less time
than if ISO itself starts from scratch with the regular track. Lately, ECMA
has been publishing various fast track submissions to get the ball rolling,
waiting for the actual standard to be published, possibly with minor
revisions, and then republishing an updated edition to keep the two
standards in synch.
The address for ECMA is:
ECMA Headquarters
114 Rue du Rhone
1204 Geneva
Switzerland
You should ask for the publications list. I think they will not send out
more than 4-5 standards documents per request. Available standards include
various international character codes, tape reel and cartridge standards,
tape volume and file structure, CD-ROM volume and file structure, CD-ROM
physical media format (formerly available only to Philips/Sony licensees),
floppy disks, etc.
--
A. Lester Buck ...!texbell!moray!siswat!buckjlohmeye@entec.Wichita.NCR.COM (John Lohmeyer) (08/09/89)
In article <438@siswat.UUCP> buck@siswat.UUCP (A. Lester Buck) writes: >I have come across a cheap way to obtain copies of some ANSI/ISO standards >and I thought I should spread the word to people on a budget. I would urge >everyone not to abuse this source, since a flood of requests could easily >kill this for everyone. > >The European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) reprints quite a few >of the ANSI/ISO standards as ECMA standards. ECMA will send you a copy of >any of their standars at no charge (i.e., free). ...stuff deleted... If everyone who reads this newsgroup orders just one standard, ECMA may go under. :-) Seriously, theyill get a misconception about the interest for their versions of various standards and they may have to start charging for their copies which are not always "reprints"of the ISO and ANSI. While in most cases, if a standard is available from multiple standards organizations, it is almost identical, this is not guaranteed. There may be intentional or unintentional differences. For instance, the three SCSI (SCSI-1) standards are similar, but not identical. ANSI X3.131-1986. -- The one most people have used to design products. ECMA-111 1985. -- It was based on the earlier drafts of the ANSI document. Some low-end features were omitted. It was INTENDED to be the compatible, but it MIGHT contain unintended differences. It did not use the same word processor files. ISO 9316-1989. -- This ISO standard was republished starting with the ANSI files. But it has hundreds of man-hours of work invested in converting it from the ANSI style to the ISO style. Also, it was imported into Ventura Publisher from WordStar. Most of the tables were re-entered. Many of the figures were re-drawn. I found a LOT of errors in the drafts of this document. Do you want to bet that I found them all? I don't. :-) My point is not to tear down the effort of the dedicated people who worked on these projects. I agree that a casual user could substitute one flavor of a standard for another. But I wouldn't want to bet my products on there being NO differences. >I think this duplication stems from the use of the ISO "fast >track" standardization process, whereby, if some recognized standards body >publishes a proposed standard, it can be approved by ISO in much less time >than if ISO itself starts from scratch with the regular track. I have participated in ISO/IEC JTC-1/SC-13 (now SC-83). We tried to use the "fast track" procedure on the ANSI SMD standard. I think they should call it the "slow track" procedure. There is still internal debate over what the fast track procedure means. One faction thinks it means that after a couple votes ISO slaps an ISO cover page on the national standard. Another faction thinks it means that after approval, it still must be re-published in the ISO style. The second faction appears to be winning. This is NOT fast. As far as I know, nothing has come out of fast track yet. -- John Lohmeyer J.Lohmeyer@Wichita.NCR.COM NCR Corp. uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!entec!jlohmeye 3718 N. Rock Rd. Voice: 316-636-8703 Wichita, KS 67226 SCSI BBS 316-636-8700 300/1200/2400 24 hours