Final Agenda for the 980713 meeting
Tom Pittman gave the dinner talk, on the Y2K problem --a lot of the serious hard-to-fix Y2K problems are in embedded systems, exactly what a lot of MSC members have been involved with over the years. A printed version of his presentation is available online as: ftp://ftp.SCIzzL.com//MSC/Y2K-PittmanMSCdinnerTalk.pdf
We discussed the problem of losing our excellent secretary, Fritz Whittington, and how to continue. We decided to simplify our document procedure, by splitting the information into several documents, and to rely on Web distribution instead of paper mailings, except as may be required by IEEE rules (printouts of the Web files would be made and mailed as required). Also, some people don't have Web access, and minutes would be provided in hard copy form at each meeting for those people.
We will set up an MSC reflector list, at MSC@sunrise.scu.edu, so that chairs can post reports to the MSC themselves via this address, and meeting notices can be sent to that address.
The reflector archive will be made accessible online.
Bob Davis moved, Dick Karpinski seconded, that we adopt this procedure. No objections.
Bob Davis gave a talk about the idea of a Datasheet Standard. We voted to request a PAR for this, P1537. (Moved by Don Wright, seconded by Bob Ferguson, no objections. Davis to chair.)
The full IEC ISA is meeting in Houston in October 1998.
We voted (Tom Pittman moved, Dick Karpinski seconded, no objections) to approve P1285's (Scalable I/O Architecture) request for another 2 year extension for completion.
We voted (submitted by Working Group, carried without objection) to approve P1363's (Standard Specifications for Public-Key Cryptography) request to go to Sponsor Ballot. The current draft is at http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363. Use UserID "P1363" and password "MarsRoks" to access it.
We agreed to P1212r's (Control and Status Register Architecture, revision) request for a Study Group on Power Management, chaired by John Fuller. The need for this came up in the P1394a work. There is a question where the specifications for power management CSRs should be defined, in P1394a or in P1212r.
We discussed Burt Kaliski's question whether the MSC would be a suitable sponsor for a standard for truly random generation of bits. We decided we would be happy to sponsor such a project, but had some questions how one would standardize such a thing, and wondered if there has been relevant work in other places. We established a Study Group chaired by Burt Kaliski to consider what to do.
We created a Study Group for P1284r, to consider when and how to start a revision project. Chair Don Wright has polled interested parties and gotten about 20 responses with ideas for changes.
Bob Davis moved, Edwin ElKareh seconded, no objections, to approve last meeting's minutes.
The P1996 Rugged PCI (with SCI and telecom SONET embedded) backplane is in fab!
Our PAR request for P1596.10 Standard for SCI/LAMP Multiport Bus Interface, chaired by Khan Kibria, was approved in the June Standards Board meeting.
We will have the Long Range Planning committee meeting (chaired by Edwin ElKareh) at the same location as the MSC meeting next time, an hour earlier.
For the Good of the Society:
We discussed releasing a Press Release on the Y2K topic. Subsequently the following was
drafted:
The Microprocessor Standards Committee (MSC) has examined some of the issues relating to preparations for the Year 2000, and the MSC considers that many of the problems -- particularly those involving microprocessors -- will not be solved in the time remaining. The MSC therefore recommends that timely consideration be given to alternative strategies for mitigating the impact of the century rollover in microprocessor systems not designed with that in mind.
The MSC was formed in 1980 as a standards making body within the IEEE Computer Society, for the purpose of developing standards in the nascent microprocesser industry. The MSC has supervised the development of a number of industry bus standards as well as IEEE-754, the floating-point arithmetic standard now universally used in virtually all new computer hardware designs.
The MSC can be reached for further comment at...
This release was not sent out, as the chair subsequently discovered there is already an IEEE CS Y2K group in action, and press releases also have to be approved by the IEEE, so the benefit/effort seems small.