Ncr Corporation

Gene Robert Erickson

P Keith Muller

Douglas Edward Hundley

Curtis Hall Stehley

Gregory Howard Milby

Gary Lee Boggs

Robert Samuel Cooper

Donald G Tipon

An enhanced ATM switch with CPU node interconnect functionality and peripheral interconnect functionality and network functionality. The ATM switch provides low latency transfer between computer nodes and performs input/output operations with peripherals through the ATM network. SCSI Fibre Channel protocol (FCP) commands are implemented according to ATM standards to provide communication with peripherals. A segmentation and reassembly (SAR) unit is provided for performing ATM segmentation and reassembly. The SAR includes functional units which allow direct connection of an application agent to the core of the switch once the cell characteristics are determined by the application agent and provides ATM cell translation to and from available kernel buffers. The transmission media in the ATM network comprises digital optical links. The enhanced ATM switch may also include a synchronous optical network (SONET) interface for providing SONET transmission over the digital optical links in the ATM network.

ATM/SONET network enhanced as a universal computer system interconnect

A method of controlling an input/output (I/O) device connected to a computer to facilitate fast I/O data transfers. An address space for the I/O device is created in the virtual memory of the computer, wherein the address space comprises virtual registers that are used to directly control the I/O device. In essence, control registers and/or memory of the I/O device are mapped into the virtual address space, and the virtual address space is backed by control registers and/or memory on the I/O device. Thereafter, the I/O device detects writes to the address space. As a result, a pre-defined sequence of actions can be triggered in the I/O device by programming specified values into the data written into the mapped virtual address space.

Method for performing sequence of actions in device connected to

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Poway, CA, United States of America

Gene Robert Erickson