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ATA Manager 4.0

Mac OS 9 includes ATA Manager 4.0, which has a modular design similar to that of SCSI Manager 4.3. This modularity provides the flexibility to have multiple ATA controllers working at the same time--for example, those for the UltraDMA66 and EIDE interfaces. ATA Manager 4.0 supports both controllers together by including ATA Interface Modules (AIMs) for both.

With the new modular design, the ATA Manager and the ATA plug-ins divide the responsibilities. The ATA Manager is resposible for

• registering ATA plug-ins
• routing each request to the appropriate plug-in
• calling completion routines for asynchronous calls

ATA plug-ins are responsible for

• handling each request
• error handling
• returning errors