International Business Machines Corporation

Andy G Lean

Thomas A Horvath

Kiyoshi Maruyama

Thomas K McCarthy

Halil Burhan Bakoglu

Inching Chen

Norman H Kreitzer

Cesar Augusto Gonzales

Chung-wai Yue

Bob Chao-Chu Liang

Jeng-Chun Janet Chen

Ghung-Wai Yue

A method and apparatus for playing the same video game by a number of players at remote locations over a telephone network. More specifically, a video representation of the game played by a number of video game players stored at each of the player locations. The control signals representing the actions of the players are then transmitted to a single one of the locations where the control signals are sequenced. The sequence control signals are then stored in a queue wherein the video game is played at each of the locations by synchronously reading the control signals from each queue at each of the locations and sending them to corresponding ports of each video game at each location.

Networking video games over telephone network

A video game cartridge that can be plugged into a video game machine to enable a user to request and play a video game for a predetermined number of video frames. The cartridge has a receiver for receiving the video game program and the predetermined frame count in response to a request from the user. The program and frame count is then stored in a memory of the cartridge. Finally, the cartridge has a counter which changes its value when the user is actively playing the video game program. The counter ceases to change its value when the user is not playing the video game program. When the counter reaches a predetermined limit, the user is no longer authorized to play the video game program.

Universal electronic video game renting/distributing system

A sequential process-pipeline has a first processing stage (30) coupled to a CODEC (24) through a plurality of buffers, including an image data input buffer (28), an image data output buffer (26), and an address buffer (34). The image data input buffer stores, for each block of image data, control information for controlling the processing of an associated block of image data. The address buffer stores addresses, each of which identifies an initial address of a block of addresses within an image memory (22). A local controller (18) is responsive to the writing of an address into the address buffer to read the control information for a block to be processed, and to initiate the operation of the CODEC, in accordance with the read-out information, to execute a Discrete Cosine Transformation Process and a Discrete Cosine Transformation Quantization Process.

Sequential pipelined processing for the compression and decompression of

The present invention provides an integrated display system for multi-media workstations wherein graphics image and video data are merged in a single frame buffer. The integrated display system employs 3-port VRAMs with a first serial access port for display data output, and a random access port for graphics data, a second serial access for video data input. The display system includes a single frame buffer memory system for a multi-media workstation which operates compatibly with display systems and logic designed for dual frame buffer systems and it uses the 3-port VRAM in combination with a means incorporating improved input locking, video update or refresh, and encoded video data input stream.

Integrated single frame buffer memory for storing graphics and video data

A sequential process-pipeline (12) has a first processing stage (30) coupled to a CODEC (24) through a plurality of buffers, including an image data input buffer (28), an image data output buffer (26), and an address buffer (34). The address buffer stores addresses, each of which identifies an initial address of a block of addresses within an image memory (22). Each block of addresses in the image memory stores a block of decompressed image data. A local controller (18) is responsive to the writing of an address into the address buffer to initiate the operation of the CODEC to execute a Discrete Cosine Transformation Process and a Discrete Cosine Transformation Quantization Process.

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Merrick, NY, United States of America

Andy G Lean