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:
May. 11, 1993
Filed:
Oct. 05, 1990
George J Barlow, Tewksbury, MA (US);
Richard C Zelley, North Chelmsford, MA (US);
James W Keeley, Nashua, NH (US);
Bull HN Information Systems Inc., Billerica, MA (US);
Abstract
A means for ascertaining the health, or basic operational status, of a system unit. A 'health check' provides an indication of either 'yes', the system unit is operational, or 'no', the system unit is either inoperative or there is a question as to whether the system is operational. The test is performed by requesting that the system unit perform a high priority 'short' operation and noting the response provided to the request; the actual execution of the request is unimportant and it is the response of the unit under test to the receipt of the request for a bus operation that is the actual indicator of the status of the unit being tested. The requested operation is not directed at the unit whose operational status is to be determined, but instead at a bus interface unit which performs bus operations for the unit to be tested and whose responses to requests for bus operations are effected by the operational status of the unit that is to be tested. The operation is not directed at an actual element in the bus interface unit, but at a phantom, or nonexistent, element.