Advanced Technology Attachment

storage, hardware, standard (ATA, AT Attachment or

"Integrated Drive Electronics", IDE) A disk drive interface

standard based on the IBM PC ISA 16-bit bus but also

used on other personal computers. The ATA specification

deals with the power and data signal interfaces between the

motherboard and the integrated disk controller and drive.

The ATA "bus" only supports two devices - master and slave.

ATA drives may in fact use any physical interface the

manufacturer desires, so long as an embedded translator is

included with the proper ATA interface. ATA "controllers" are

actually direct connections to the ISA bus.

Originally called IDE, the ATA interface was invented by

Compaq around 1986, and was developed with the help of

Western Digital, Imprimis, and then-upstart ConnerPeripherals. Efforts to standardise the interface started in

1988; the first draft appeared in March 1989, and a finished

version was sent to ANSI group X3T10 (who named it "Advanced

Technology Attachment" (ATA)) for ratification in November

1990.

X3T10 later extended ATA to Advanced Technology AttachmentInterface with Extensions (ATA-2), followed by ATA-3 and

ATA-4.

X3T10 .

(1998-10-08)