greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith) (03/16/87)
According to an article "Will IBM's PC soon be an IEEE standard?" in the Feb 1987 issue of "The Institute", two IEEE working groups are attempting to develop standards for the PC system bus, and the BIOS. Usually when a group is formed to develop a standard based on an existing product or group of products, the manufacturer plays some role in the proceedings. IBM however has no comments on the activities of these groups. The P996 project is an attempt to define and publish a technical specification for the 8- and 16-bit system buses used in the PC's, and to define a 32-bit extension of the bus. There are three study groups within P996: one is codifying existing 8- and 16-bit buses for IBM PC's and compatibles; one is proposing a 32-bit extension for the bus; and the third is collecting electrical data for buses in existing PC's and compatibles. The P1134 group has been formed to develop a standard for a PC BIOS to run under the 80286 or 80386. Rather than standardizing the BIOS code itself, they want to "create a common approach to writing this basic input/output control code". -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg Smith University of Toronto UUCP: ..utzoo!utcsri!greg Have vAX, will hack...
gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) (03/19/87)
This seems a little like trying to standardize the height of automobile tail fins or the calcifcation process of dinosuar remains. The IBM PC was obsolete when it was introduced, was purposefully not well defined, and is not particularly well suited to current implementing current & near future technology. Standardization will not cure the compatiblity problems that exist, and the cloners will likely ignore it anyway. Better to spend precious time (that nobody I know of has any of to waste) on standardizing a buss that we'd LIKE to have. . -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wudda yeah mean, I'm gonna get in trouble? I AM in trouble! ________________________________________________________________________________