DSSI: What was it like? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

14 Oct 2000

...
 One of the more interesting aspects of this bus is that
every "target" is
...
 an independent entity (its more like an 8 bit parallel
network than an I/O
...
 bus). Thus disks have their own controller running
their own OS etc and you

IE smaller version of the HSC and friends with potential for faster bus
as well.

...
 All in all I think it is superior to SCSI in many ways
but because DEC held
...
 on to it so tightly it was never adopted beyond DEC
machines.

As for the abbreviation DSSI I've heard two different expansions used:
         "Digital Standard Storage Interconnect"
         "Digital Standard System Interconnect"
I've yet to find something that pins it down definitively. 

DIGITAL Storage System Interconnect,  The only use of "standard"
within the DEC lexicon is limited to "DEC Standards" refering to
the 200+ documented engineering standard for things like how to
pack and label a box, what a terminal is and must do to what a
VAX  is and how it should work.

Allison