Object Technology Licensing Corporation

Taligent, Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Glenn P Andert

George W Norman

Erath Unikat Sudhakaran

E U Sudhakaran

Steven P Lemon

System resources are automatically assigned by a single resource conflict resolver to all functions on expansion buses in a computer system. Such system resources include, but are not limited to, memory ranges, input-output (I/O) register ranges, interrupt request lines and direct memory access (DMA) channels. Generally, the assignment is exclusive, however, in some cases, the assignment may be shared so that one or more resources will be shared between different functions. In order to prevent contention between two functions for the same resource, classes are provided which classes can be instantiated to construct resource lock objects. The resource lock objects provide an access control mechanism to synchronize access to the resources among the devices that use and, possibly, share the resources. The lock object contains methods which retrieve the resource assignments for an I/O function and acquire a lock on the resources. The lock object can be used by device drivers to first retrieve the resource assignments from the hardware configuration database and then acquire access to the resources assigned to an I/O function. The acquired access can be either exclusive or shared.

Object-oriented resource lock and entry register

A method and system for providing services in an object-oriented system. The method and system are in the form of an interface reference framework of objects, which create services, in response to requests. Clients request services which are created in response to the requests. In response to the request, the framework first develops a description of the service. The description is in the form of a stack of descriptions of services. From the stack descriptions the actual services are created by maker objects.

Isolating client application requests for device services through an object-oriented service stack system

A single, global resource manager assigns system resources to all hardware devices in the computer system, including hardware devices that are both 'plug and play' software programmable, hardware devices that are manually-configurable and the system motherboard. The resource manager includes a conflict resolver module which resolves conflicts which arise in the computer system over the allocation of system resources. Such system resources include, but are not limited to, memory ranges, input-output (I/O) register ranges, interrupt request lines and direct memory access (DMA) channels. Resource requirements for each device are obtained by recognizer objects which are customized versions of standardized objects that are part of the resource resolver framework and all resource requirements are encapsulated in resource usage objects which have a standard interface that works with the global resource resolver. The resource usage objects also encapsulate resource assignments generated by the global conflict resolver and thus contain complete information regarding resources for each device. The resource usage objects are stored in a hardware configuration database by recorder objects which are specialized for each device. The stored resource usage objects can be used both during system booting and during manual system reconfiguration.

Object-oriented global resource conflict resolver formatting resource

A conflict object is generated during a conflict resolution process when resource conflicts cannot be resolved. The conflict object contains detailed information concerning the source of the conflict. If the conflict results from a manually-configured board and the manually-configured board can be reconfigured to remove the conflict, the conflict object provides information concerning the necessary change. When the conflict object is generated, an exception is also thrown, allowing the computer system to perform additional processing such as notifying the user and displaying the contents of the conflict object.

System for informing a computer user of a conflict encountered during

When an expansion card is installed in a computer system using a computer viewer, an object is created by the computer viewer to represent the card. The computer viewer uses the card object to examine the card for I/O functions present on the card and to obtain resource requirements for each function. The resource requirements are also provided to a resource conflict resolver object which attempts to assign resources to each I/O function on the cards. If the resource conflict resolver is successful in assigning resource to each I/O function, then the resource assignments are also stored in objects. The computer viewer then uses the card objects to store the resource objects in a persistent storage. During a later system boot operation, the booting system creates bus and card recognizer objects which identify expansion buses and cards present in the system and retrieve the function resource objects from the persistent storage to represent each expansion card.

Apparatus and method for modeling behavior of expansion boards in a

A method and system for providing services in an object oriented system. The method and system are in the form of an interface reference framework of objects which create services in response to requests. Clients request services which are created in response to the requests. In response to the request the framework first develops a description of the service. The description is in the form of a stack of descriptions of services. From the stack descriptions the actual services are created by maker objects.

System for connecting a client to a server with a protocol stack

An object-oriented input/output (IO) system represents an interface between clients of the IO system and peripheral devices, such that the clients can access the peripheral devices by utilizing IO services offered by the IO system. The IO system includes one or more object-oriented IO servicers for receiving IO service requests from clients, and for generating IO commands in accordance with the IO service requests. One or more object-oriented access managers, coupled to the IO servicers and the peripheral devices, access the peripheral devices as instructed by the IO commands such that the IO service requests are satisfied. The peripheral devices may transmit interrupts to a kernel while operating in accordance with the IO commands. One or more object-oriented interrupt servicers, coupled to the kernel receive and decode the interrupts from the peripheral devices. One or more object-oriented interrupt handlers, coupled to the interrupt servicers, process the decoded interrupts. The IO system cited here includes an operating system independent execution environment for the various I/O servicers, each of which is designed in such a way as to support a variety of interchangeable operating systems.

System for constructing hardware device interface software systems

System for providing system services for a device to a client using

An object-oriented hardware configuration system for enabling centralized user configuration of hardware in a computer system includes a plurality of object-oriented hardware interface objects each representing a hardware device physical connector, and a plurality of object-oriented hardware module objects. Each of the hardware module objects represents a hardware device that is user-configurable. Each of the hardware module objects includes one or more hardware interface objects associated with the hardware device such that connectors of the hardware device are defined. An object-oriented hardware configuration object is provided, wherein the hardware configuration object includes a plurality of hardware module objects that represent hardware devices connected to a particular computer system. The hardware configuration object defines a hardware configuration of the particular computer system. A user may access the hardware configuration object to configure the hardware devices connected to the particular computer system.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Glenn P Andert