Guide to the Dal Allan collection
Finding aid prepared by Sydney Gulbronson Olson
Computer History Museum
April 2018
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA, 94043
(650) 810-1010
research@computerhistory.org
Title: Dal Allan collection
Identifier/Call Number: X7994.2017
Contributing Institution:
Computer History Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
9.5 Linear feet,
7 record cartons and 1 periodical box
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1985-1995
Date (inclusive): 1970-1997
Abstract: The Dal Allan collection ranges in date from 1970 to 1997 and holds documentation pertaining to mass storage and disk drives.
About half of the collection consists of conference and forum proceedings from data storage conferences between 1987 and 1996.
About a quarter of the collection consists of storage industry market studies and forecasts published between 1988 and 1992
by groups such as IDEMA, Technology Forums, International Data Corporation (IDC), and Peripheral Research Corporation. The
last fourth of the collection is made up of printed materials related to data storage, including technical reports, specifications,
manuals, clippings, promotional material, and periodicals.
Collection surveyed by Sydney Gulbronson Olson, 2018.
The collection is open for research.
The Computer History Museum (CHM) can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying
any claims of the copyright holder. Requests for copying and permission to publish, quote, or reproduce any portion of the
Computer History Museum's collection must be obtained jointly from both the copyright holder (if applicable) and the Computer
History Museum.
[Identification of item], [Date], Dal Allan collection, Lot X7994.2017, Box [#], Computer History Museum.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Dal Allan, 2016.
Dal Allan is president of ENDL Consulting and specializes in peripheral interfaces, especially storage. Allan grew up in Australia
and at the age of 19, went to work for International Business Machines (IBM) in 1960 while earning his bachelor's degree in
Economics. He worked in the systems department, where he learned to program and became one of the four people who wrote the
original disk operating system for the System 360. In 1969 he transferred to IBM in San Jose, California. He then left IBM
and worked at Information Storage Systems (ISS) for much of the 1970s. Allan was very active in the disk drive industry, taking
leadership roles in developing disk drive and storage interface standards. For example, he was involved in the development
of SCSI and Fibre Channel standards. Allan was also on the Small Form Factor Committee, now known as the SFF Committee, which
was formed in 1990 to develop interoperability specifications as a complement to the traditional standards committee process.
In 1984, Allan started an organization called ENDL Inc., a consulting firm specializing in computer interfaces. For over twenty
years, the company published a newsletter, ENDL Letter, to provide inside information on storage technology developments.
Allan is a member of the Storage Special Interest Group committee at the Computer History Museum.
Scope and Content of the Collection
The Dal Allan collection holds documentation pertaining to mass storage and disk drives during the 1980s and 1990s. About
half of the collection consists of conference proceedings from events such as the Data Storage Interface and Technology conference,
the European Data Storage Interface and Technology conference, and the Storage, Interface and Communication conference. Other
conferences include the Head/Media Technology Review, the Arrowhead III, and the Data Compression conferences. There are also
a number of forum proceedings, including those of the SCSI, Fibre Channel, and RAID forums, as well as some conference paper
digests. About a quarter of the collection consists of storage industry market studies and forecasts published between 1988
and 1992 by groups such as IDEMA, Technology Forums, International Data Corporation (IDC), and Peripheral Research Corporation.
The last fourth of the collection is made up of printed materials related to data storage, including technical reports, specifications,
manuals, clippings, promotional material, and issues of some magazines, such as Computer Technology Review, Mini-Micro Systems,
Hard Copy, and Digital Design.
Issues of ENDL Letter Happenings were separated from the main collection. To view catalog records for separated material,
search the CHM catalog at
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/ .
Dal Allan oral history, Lot X6787.2013, catalog number 102746670.
James N. Porter papers, Lot X6504.2012, catalog number 102733956.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
ENDL Incorporated.
Computer storage devices
Data disk drives
Data disk drives industry
Fibre Channel (Standard)
RAID (Computer science)
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)