Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc.

Other

Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.p.

Paul C Stanley

Walter G Fry

Todd J Deschepper

Kenneth W Stufflebeam

Richard Churchill

Rahul V Lakdawala

A target apparatus adapted to receive projectiles such as bottle caps tossed or otherwise launched towards the target. Three vertically aligned catch structures are disposed to receive and retain the bottle caps. The three catch structures have different sizes resulting in different degrees of difficulty in projecting a bottle cap into the respective structures. The lowest catch structure is the largest, the middle catch structure being the smallest, and the uppermost catch structure being sized between the lower and the middle structures. Chains completely surround the middle and upper catch structures. Chains only surround the sides and rear of the lowest catch structure. An opening in the front of the lowest catch structure is adapted to receive a projectile therein that is routed to a special basket. A scoring system is provided that awards points depending upon which of the catch structures retains a bottle cap.

Bottle cap golf apparatus and method

Apparatus to grip a guitar with a hand of a user and a guitar including such apparatus are disclosed. The guitar includes a main body and a horn extending from the main body. The horn includes at least one feature adapted to conform to the hand of the user. The features of the horn may be formed as part of the guitar or may be added to the horn of the guitar after formation of the guitar.

Guitar gripping apparatus

A clock control technique allows reducing the power consumption of devices connected to a computer bus. Individual idle devices can be disconnected from the bus clock by a device clock controller and placed in a low-power state without waiting for all devices on the bus to go idle. When individual devices are idle, transactions on the bus are monitored and unclaimed transactions are claimed by the device clock controller, which then forces a retry of the transaction and reconnects the clock to the idle devices. This brings these devices from the low-power state to a full power state, where they are capable of claiming the transaction when it is retried.

Enhanced PCI clock control architecture

A computer system allows devices to be unmasked so to be detected or to be masked invisible to the Plug-and-Play architecture or similar architectures. When operating under Plug-and-Play, which assigns systems resources to system devices in a predetermined order despite a limited number of such resources, a user uses software to set the switch in the device's memory such that an undesired device becomes &ldquo;invisible&rdquo; to a subsequent power-up configuration of the system. Device configuration proceeds in two phases. During a first configuration phase, the invisible device cannot be configured, i.e. cannot be assigned resources, including interrupt request lines. Hence, those lines remain available to other devices on the system that would not have received resource allocation during a prior-art configuration. During the first phase, the other devices can be assigned the necessary resources to operate properly. Thus, software can command a configuration that would otherwise be impossible. During a second phase, yet-unconfigured devices are configured. When commanded to do so by software, the memory is reset such that the device becomes visible and thus configurable by the Plug-and-Play architecture. The switch is either a non-volatile memory on the device itself, or a dedicated region within the PCI configuration space. When the system is rebooted, the devices that are invisible are not assigned resources, while the visible devices are assigned resources including interrupt request lines. Thus, a programmable select mask prevents configuration of the peripheral during a first configuration phase when the peripheral device is masked and permits configuration of the peripheral during the first configuration phase when the peripheral device is unmasked. A programmable select mask register or a programmable select mask routine (the latter being executable by the processor) includes a mask indicator corresponding to a peripheral device. If desired, the mask indicator itself forms the invention. The invention also includes a step of, during a second configuration phase, configuring the peripheral device.

Method and apparatus for providing support for dynamic resource assignment and configuration of peripheral devices when enabling or disabling plug-and-play aware operating systems

A hardware implementation of the General Purpose Event status register supports the ability to assert, under software control, individual General Purpose Event status bits in a General Purpose Event register in an ACPI environment. Software control over the General Purpose Event register allows compensation of a platform electronic apparatus for design defects discovered late in the development cycle. Software control also enables the creation at any time of new &ldquo;hardware events&rdquo; which are then processed by the ACPI driver by means of manufacturer provided P-code. The ability to provide a software work-around for a wide range of ACPI related difficulties is advantageously created. Moreover, additional ACPI value-added features can thereafter be developed to differentiate and enhance ACPI compatible products.

Method and apparatus for artificially generating general purpose events in an ACPI environment

A computer system including a programmable bridge logic device to disable various peripheral device functions is disclosed. The bridge logic device preferably includes an address decoder and one or more peripheral bus controllers. The address decoder preferably includes a configuration disable unit comprising one or more programmable status bits. Each status bit is associated with a particular peripheral device function, such as a IDE or USB functions. When a status bit is set, configuration cycles to the function corresponding to that bit are disabled. In one aspect of the invention, the computer system comprises a laptop computer that can be docked to an expansion base. The laptop and the expansion base may duplicate one or more functions. When docked, the status bit in the bridge device associated with a function also provided in the expansion base is set disabling the duplicate function in the laptop in favor of the function in the expansion base. In this manner, only the peripheral device function in the expansion base is enabled, avoiding confusion to the computer system. When the bridge device receives a configuration cycle targeting a peripheral device function, the address decoder determines whether the status bit associated with that function is set. If the bit is indeed set, indicating that function is disabled in favor of expansion base, the bridge device does not claim the cycle. The CPU, or other device that initiated the cycle determines that the cycle has not been claimed by the bridge device and tries the cycle on the expansion base. If that function is available in the expansion base, then the CPU enables that expansion base peripheral for operation.

Computer system with enhanced docking support

A method for supporting a USB-based Device Bay Controller without a hardware interface between the DBC and the 1394 bus, by intercepting 1394 GUID queries in software and returning a stored GUID which is set by the manufacturer to be correct for the hardware actually present.

Growing community of inventors

The Woodlands, TX, United States of America

Paul C Stanley