The earliest use I can find of the "AT Attachment" terminology is the
X3T9 project proposal from late 1990 which eventually led to the
formation of the X3T10 group:
http://www.t10.org/ftp/x3t9.2/document.90/90-058r2.txt
On Tue, 3 Oct 2017, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote:
As I previously posted, these minutes refer one of two CAM Committee meeting
in May or Jun 1989 where it was announced that the "ATA document" was nearly
complete:
http://www.t10.org/ftp/x3t9.2/document.89/89-075r0.txt
I have found two independent sources that indicate a first draft of the
document appeared in Mar 1989.
We would need to compare that with WD internal discussions, OR
compare public discussions.
ATA committee existed, and was working on a standard; then WD sold
products; then ATA standard was formally released.
Comparing "FIRST"s in development, is not the same as comparing
"FIRST"s in release or production.
There are plenty of other races, where one was first to be built, but a
different one was first to be available.
My guess of the timeline, is that MANY people wanted the same idea.
People in the standards committee(s) started to discuss it, while some
drive engineers started to build them.
Were members of committee talking about it before WD spoke up?
Were WD engineers working on it before committee mentioned it?
Yes, to both.
The standards committee(s) called it "AT attachment"; the WD engineers
called it "IDE" NEITHER name was used publicly. YET.
The committees started to draft standards. WD started to market.
WD probably pushed the committee(s) to use WD's pinout and details.
Companies are ALWAYS pushing standards committees to do it THEIR way.
Motherboard makers started to call theirs "IDE", because calling them ATA
might run afoul of the not-yet-released standard. "ATA" was hardly a
secret, but it wasn't "official" yet.
When the standard was released, the MB makers were already calling it
"IDE", and that stuck, in spite of "ATA" becoming the "official" name and
standard.
Q: was the card slot in the Poqet "PCMCIA"? ("People Can't Memorize
Computer Industry Acronyms" ("Personal Computer Memory Card Industry
Association", for those who want more formality))
Maybe later ones were, but the first ones were just "card slot" "that
happened to match PCMCIA when that came out"
