Apple Inc.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Matthew R Nelson

Thomas E Saulpaugh

Gregory L Slaughter

Bernard A Traversat

R Steven Smith

A system for controlling one or more functions of an electronic device is disclosed. The system includes an electrical cable configured to be selectively coupled to the electronic device and transmit electrical signals to and from the electronic device; at least two electrical conductors electrically coupled to the electrical cable; and a repositionable control device selectively coupled to the at least two electrical conductors. The repositionable control device is configured to control the one or more functions associated with the electronic device.

Repositionable control system and method for using the same

A method and system for customizing the transformation of an object-oriented database to and from a grammatical form. A grammatical form is an expression of an object-oriented database in a textual form according to a grammar. The transformation customizer is a plug-in which provides translation of primitive data types to and from complex data types for compilation and serialization processes. A complex data type is defined in terms of one or more primitive data types. One or more values in the object-oriented database are expressed in terms of the complex data type. During serialization, the plug-in module is invoked. The plug-in understands both the complex data type and the primitive data types. The values from the object-oriented database are translated from the complex data type to the primitive data types. For customizing compilation, one or more values expressed in terms of the primitive data types are translated to the complex data type when the plug-in is invoked. The object-oriented database is an object-oriented configuration database which stores configuration parameters pertaining to the software and hardware of a computer system, such as application programs, device drivers, system services, and other components. The object-oriented database is platform-independent and is therefore configured to be hosted on several different operating systems and computing platforms.

Method for serializing, compiling persistent textual form of an object-oriented database into intermediate object-oriented form using plug-in module translating entries according to grammar

A method for transferring data between a host computer and peripheral storage including the steps of: (a) receiving data from the host; (b) determining if an escape command is present in the data; (c) writing the data to the a peripheral storage medium if a escape command is not present in the data; and (d) performing as least one command relative to the peripheral storage if a escape command is present in the data. Also disclosed is a method for controlling a disk drive unit including the steps of: (a) determining on a host computer a current action to be performed with a disk drive unit; (b) formatting a track of a disk engaged with a disk drive unit based upon output data provided by the host computer if the current action is a formatting action; (c) writing a sector on the disk based upon the output data provided by the host computer if the current action is a writing action; and (d) reading a sector of the disk and transferring input information to the host computer if the action is a reading action. Escape codes are used to distinguish 'normal' data from 'special' data. A disk drive controller of the present invention includes digital logic responsive to a data bus of the host computer and operative to develop a datatype bus based on the data bus, where the datatype bus is operative to specify one of a plurality of data types, and a converter responsive to the data bus and the datatype bus and operative to provide serial data to a disk drive unit mechanism.

Disk controller having sequential digital logic in a state machine for

Each device is represented by a node in a hierarchical tree, referred to herein as an interrupt source tree (IST). The root and intermediate nodes of the IST represent dispatching or determining points; this removes the need for the device drivers to contain dispatching code; the drivers now only need to contain interrupt handling code specific to the device itself. At these nodes code is executed to determine which branch to take down the IST. The bottom nodes are the leaf nodes; the leaf nodes identify the device interrupt handler. By moving the determination steps performed by the different device drivers to the nodes of the IST, the device drivers are modular and portable. Furthermore, changes to the computer system configuration, which in the prior art would require modification of all device drivers, can be adapted to by modification of the IST.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Matthew R Nelson