The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 26, 1988
Filed:
Oct. 15, 1986
Colin M Duxbury, Woodley, GB;
Raymond Yates, Manchester, GB;
International Computers Limited, London, GB;
Abstract
A data transmission system is described, comprising a plurality of processing nodes (10-13). At any given time, one of the nodes acts as a star coupler, for broadcasting messages to all the other nodes. This node uses a plurality of counters (361-363) to keep track of the amount of available space in the receive buffers (351) of the other nodes. Whenever a message is broadcast, all the counters are decremented. Conversely, whenever an acknowledgement signal is received, indicating that one of the other nodes has removed a message from its buffer, the corresponding counter is incremented. If any of the counters indicates that a buffer is full or nearly full, broadcasting is suspended. If any of the nodes develops a fault, preventing it from removing messages from its buffer, it transmits a constant stream of acknowledgement signals, thereby preventing the corresponding counter from indicating 'full' and hence allowing the system to continue running.