Status Report on the P896 Backplane Bus

This report on the activities of the P896 (Advanced Microcomputer System Backplane Bus) Subcommittee of the Computer Society´s Microprocessor Standards Committee describes the origins of the subcommittee and the status of the proposed specification as of its December 11, 1980 meeting. It must be emphasized that, while representing the fruits of many months of effort on the part of a joint US/European working group, the specification is incomplete and subject to significant change. This draft provides a preview of the general form of the functional specification and is intended to elicit technical response and to solicit participation in the work of the subcommittee. It is based on the working document for the P896 workshop held at the National Bureau of Standards facility in Boulder, Colorado on January 19-21, 1981. A summary of the results of that meeting is planned for the next issue of IEEE Micro.