Hewlett-packard Company

Kerry J Monroe

John W Slattery

Bradley W Hamilton

Lawrence Nathaniel Taugher

Kurt E Godwin

Christian J Warling

Erik R Habbinga

William P Repasky

Steven G Hall

Thomas L Bloom

An automatically configurable I/O board and associated software avoids any need for jumpers, switches, or other configuration changes upon installation of the board. Utilization of the main computer capability to select addresses and values likely to be available involves an installation or other routine which arrives at a unique parameter through common commands and repetitive execution. Uniqueness of the parameter or address is accomplished by checking for use elsewhere in the system prior to operation of the board. Steps are taken to avoid any inappropriate changes in conflicting I/O boards by activating and disabling components such as the control register on the board through use of a state machine, by using non-destructive commands for initial checks, by tristating unnecessary lines, and by re-initializing registers whenever a conflict is encountered. Additionally no address space is used to activate the board.

System for activating and configuring an input/output board in a computer

System for configuring and input/output board in a computer

A digital line driver circuit with active pull-down, high transient pull-up current, and limited steady-state pull-up current. Steady-state pull-up current is provided through a pull-up resistor. Transient pull-up current is provided by a capacitively coupled active pull-up circuit.

Logic output circuit with high transient pull-up current

An automatically configurable I/O board and associated software avoids any need for jumpers, switches, or other configuration changes upon installation of the board. Utilization of the main computer capability to select addresses and values likely to be available involves an installation or other routine which arrives at a unique parameter through common commands and repetitive execution. Uniqueness of the parameter or address is accomplished by checking for use elsewhere in the system prior to operation of the board. Steps are taken to avoid any inappropriate changes in conflicting I/O boards by activating components on the board through use of a state machine, by using non-destructive commands for initial checks, by tristating unnecessary lines, and by re-initializing registers whenever a conflict is encountered. Additionally no address space is used to activate the board.

System for configuring an input/output board in a computer

An architecture for providing hardware compression/decompression with ECC to data flow in a computer system utilizes a hardware implementation of the compression/decompression circuit in a peripheral adapter of one of many peripheral devices. Error correction coding is provided by software in the host RAM. The compression/decompression circuit can be located in the periphery and can service a number of peripheral devices. The CPU and DMA controller in the host computer are capable of providing concurrent processing for hard disk operation, peripheral control (such as a tape or a modem), compression/decompression of data, and error correction coding of the compressed data. This significantly speeds up the performance of the computer system.

Compression/decompress with ECC data flow architecture

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Fort Collins, CO, United States of America

Kerry J Monroe