🚀 go-pugleaf

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
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Wichita, KS 67226     SCSI BBS 316-636-8700 300/1200/2400 24 hours