International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Prodigy Services Company

Galambos, James A.

Cohen, Robert D.

Dalsass, Aldo R.

Silfen, Michael J.

Filepp, Robert

Appleman, Kenneth H.

Young, Francis C.

Bidwell, Alexander W.

Wong, Florence L.

Abrahams, Lawrence

Gordon, Michael L.

Tiemann, Duane

Michael L Gordon

Robert Filepp

Kenneth H Appleman

Duane E Tiemann

Alexander W Bidwell

Allan M Wolf

Sam Meo

Francis C Young

Lawrence Abrahams

Michael J Silfen

Florence M Lee

Aldo R Dalsass

Florence L Wong

Duane Tiemann

Robert D Cohen

Jeffrey N Denenberg

Mel Bellar

James A Galambos

Edward D Weinberger

Terri L Gordon

A crafter's purse is adapted for the storage, display, accessing, and carrying of crafter's tools. The crafter's purse has a generally rectangular bottom panel and an upright peripheral panel extending about the periphery of the bottom panel for forming a container having an open end. At least one exterior panel is attached to the exterior surface of the peripheral panel to form a plurality of exterior pockets for containing and displaying additional items. The crafter's purse has a pair of handles for carrying the crafter's purse and an elastic band which encircles the peripheral wall at a position above the pocket openings to secure the items contained in the pockets. At least one additional pocket may be attached to the interior surface of the peripheral wall for forming an internal pocket.

Crafter's purse

A method of operating a distributed processing, interactive computer network is described. The network is designed to provide very large numbers of simultaneous users access to large numbers of applications which feature interactive text/graphic sessions. The network includes one or more servers, interactive applications, and one or more reception systems, the reception systems being capable of communicating with the respective servers and receiving applications from them. In this arrangement, application are structured from packets termed &ldquo;objects&rdquo;, the objects including the display data and/or program code required to support execution of the application. When a request for an application is received at a reception system, if any objects for the application are unavailable from the reception system, the objects are requested from the server and supplied to the reception systems requesting the application objects. In accordance with the method, the respective reception systems include display interfaces for presenting applications to respective users the respective display interfaces featuring a plurality of display partitions. Also in accordance with the method, at least some of the respective applications are divided into sections, the respective sections being designed to form at least a part of an application display page. Further, application sections are constructed from objects such that display page parts of one or more respective applications may be controllably presented at the partitions of the interface to permit at least application page part nesting, scrolling and navigation, the objects being of multiple types and including display data and/or program code for enabling execution of applications and their presentation at the interface partitions of the respective user reception systems.

Interactive computer network and method of operation

A method is described for operating a distributed processing, interactive computer network. The network is intended to provide very large numbers of simultaneous users access to large numbers of applications which include pre-created, interactive text/graphic sessions. The network includes one or more servers, interactive applications, and one or more user reception systems. The respective reception systems are designed to and are capable of communicating with the respective servers and receiving applications from them. The respective reception systems feature a display interface, as well as reception system software, operating system software and CPU for executing the applications and presenting applications to respective users. The method features steps for preparing the applications in a high-level programing language so that the applications may be executed at the respective reception systems independently of the reception system CPU type and operating system type by interpreting the respective applications at runtime with an interpreter available at the respective reception systems. In accordance with the method, the applications are divided into sections and structured with objects of multiple types containing application display data and/or program code. The objects are distributed in the network and provided at run time at a reception system at which the respective applications are requested. The method further features steps for providing the respective application programs with a structure that features a header section, data structure section and code section implemented in objects. In this arrangement, method steps are provides to enable respective application programs code section to include one or more procedures for supporting system services, the procedures including a key word for identifying the respective procedures. Additionally, the method includes steps for enabling application program data structure section to identifying the data structure for the respective application programs. Further, the method includes steps for enabling the respective application program structure to include a header section that identifies the respective application program names.

A distributed processing, interactive computer network and method of operation is described. The network is designed to provide very large numbers of simultaneous users access to large numbers of applications which feature interactive text/graphic sessions. The network includes one or more host computers having application data stores; a plurality of concentrator computers, also including application data stores, the concentrator computers being connected in groups of one of more to each of the host computers; and a plurality of reception system computers connected in groups of one or more to each of the concentrator computers, the reception system computers being arranged so that respective users can request interactive applications at the reception system computers. In accordance with the design, the reception system computers also include application data stores. The method for operating the network includes steps for generating the interactive text/graphic sessions from objects that include data and/or program instructions. Additionally, the method features steps for distributing objects among the data stores of the network computers, and, thereafter, permitting the reception system computer at which an application is requested to selectively collect objects required for the application from the network and the respective reception system so that the requested application may be presented at the reception system based on the objects collected. This operation decreases processing demand on the higher-level network elements, permitting them to function primarily as data supply and maintenance resources, thereby reducing network complexity, cost and response time.

A distributed processing, interactive computer network and method of operation is described. The network is designed to provide very large numbers of simultaneoususers access to large numbers of applications which feature interactive text/graphic sessions. The network includes one or more host computers having application data stores; a plurality of concentrator computers, also including application data stores, the concentrator computers being connected in groups of one of more to each of the host computers; and a plurality of reception system computers connected in groups of one or more to each of the concentrator computers, the reception system computers being arranged so that respective users can request interactive applications at the reception system computers. In accordance with the design, the reception system computers also include application data stores. The method for operating the network includes steps for generating the interactive text/graphic sessions from objects that include data and/or program instructions. Additionally, the method features steps for distributing objects among the data stores of the network computers, and, thereafter, permitting the reception system computer at which an application is requested to selectively collect object required for the application from the network and the respective reception system so that the requested application may be presented at the reception system based on the objects collected. This operation decreases processing demand on the higher-level network elements, permitting them to function primarily as data supply and maintenance resources, thereby reducing network complexity, cost and response time.

A method for compressing and subsequently decompressing digital data communicated in an interactive computer network, the network designed to provide informational and transactional services to a very large population of users. The method features steps for compressing bytes of network data before transmission by substituting variable-length code words obtained from a fixed, look-up table, and, reconstituting the bytes using a fixed, decompression look-up table when the code words are received at the data reception site. In accordance with the invention, the compression and decompression look-up tables are statistically compiled by sampling the occurrence frequency of byte pairs in the network data stream, and where byte pairs are found to occur above a predetermined frequency, code words having lengths inversely related to the occurrence frequency are created for inclusion in the table so that a code word may be substituted for one byte of a pair when the other byte of the pair is found to precede it during compression, and the byte reconstituted from the code word using the decompression table when the code word is received at the reception site. Additionally, where a byte and its preceding byte constitute a pair not found within the pairs compression table, the method features steps for transmitting the byte compressed in accordance with a context-free encoding scheme, together with a suitable escape code word. Yet further, the method features steps for combining other compression and decompression procedures with the byte-pair compression and decompression to produce a compound compression scheme for the network data stream.

Data compression method for use in a computerized informational and

A method for storing data in an interactive computer network is described. In preferred form, the method features steps for establishing data stores of prescribed capacities within a network for delivering an interactive service. The stored data is used in presenting the applications that makeup the service. The method features steps for associating storage control parameters with the application data to be stored and supplying data to the respective stores in excess of their respective capacities. The method includes steps for retaining data at the stores based on the respective prescribed storage control parameters and the date usage experience at the respective stores. In preferred form, the method features steps for providing the data stores with a temporary cache for storing data during a data use session and a variable-content, permanent, file for retaining data between data use sessions. The method configures the cache from available RAM and a prescribed disk file, and the stage from a content-variable, permanent disk file. Data is retained at the cache and subsequently at the stage based on control parameters associated with the data identification, storage candidacy and version, as combined with a least-recently-used criterion. Accordingly, over multiple use sessions, the stage self-configures with data tailored to use experience. Also in the preferred form of the method described, the data is arranged as objects having a header including the storage control parameters.

Method for storing data in an interactive computer network

An interactive computer system network enables a user to display desired information, such as news, financial and cultural information, and perform desired transactional services, such as banking and shopping, through any of a plurality of types of personal computers. User inputs are received by the personal computer and are translated into personal computer-independent data objects and executable code objects which are then processed by the network. These objects comprise partitioned applications required to process user inputs, portions of which are distributed and stored either locally within the personal computer or remotely in a host computer. User characteristics are monitored by the system in order to generate and display specific advertisements to the user based on individual usage characteristics and predetermined interests.

Reception system for an interactive computer network and method of

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Dobbs Ferry, NY, United States of America

Michael L Gordon