Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Scott R Leatham

James E Veres

Marcus J Andrews

Om Sharma

Kenneth D Ray

Firdosh Kersy Bhesania

Doron J Holan

Ervin Peretz

Luis M Huapaya

Robert Ingman

A computer peripheral has a processor, non-volatile memory, and a plurality of controls. The non-volatile memory holds control mappings corresponding to a plurality of application program genres. The control mappings indicate actions to be performed in application programs of particular genres in response to actuation of particular controls. The control mappings indicate controls by unique string indexes that are also used in HID control descriptors associated with the computer peripheral.

Game control device having genre data

A system for using computer input devices with software applications is disclosed. The system includes an input device mapper, which uses a language of semantics as an interface between input devices and software applications. The input device mapper receives information about which semantics the devices connected to the computer are able to implement, and which semantics correspond to actions that a user can request the software to perform. The input device mapper maps controls on the available devices into user-requestable software actions by matching, as closely as possible, device controls and software actions that correspond to the same semantic. An input device manager employing the disclosed input device mapper translates device operation events into the software's input dialect to direct the software to perform the action into which an operated control has been mapped. The system thus makes input devices and software applications transparent to each other, and permits a software application to be designed to operate without regard to which input device is being used to control its actions.

System and method for mapping input device controls to software actions

A system for managing space in a computer memory is disclosed. The system creates free space in a computer memory by using a &ldquo;downsize&rdquo; operation, which selectively removes data from a data object residing in the memory. Each data object in the memory provides a downsize operation designed for that data object, which reduces the amount of space that the data object occupies in the memory by deleting data that can be recreated from another source, or data that is not essential to the function of the data object. Each data object may also provide a &ldquo;restore&rdquo; operation, which returns the object to a usable state in the memory by replacing data in the memory that has been removed by a prior downsize operation. The restore operation is used if an attempt is made to access the data object after it has been downsized. The system can be used to manage various types of memory containing various types of data objects. One use of the system is to manage the space on a personal computer hard disk by downsizing applications on the disk when additional disk space is needed and then restoring a downsized application when a user attempts to run it. Another use of the system could include management of a database on a storage medium by deleting portions of the database that have been archived on another medium and retrieving portions from the archive on an as-needed basis.

Method and system for managing data in computer memory

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Duvall, WA, United States of America

Scott R Leatham