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. 18, 1993
Filed:
Mar. 21, 1991
George R Stilwell, Jr, Raleigh, NC (US);
Theodore B Vojnovich, Cary, NC (US);
Robert L Walker, Raleigh, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An interface circuit for connecting an electrical half-duplex system to an optical simplex system includes logic which permits keep-alive signals to be gated onto the transmitting simplex fiber when data is not being received on the half-duplex conductor. The interface circuit includes receive logic connected in parallel with the receive data path. The receive logic responds to predetermined bit patterns in the received data to control the receive and transmit data path connections. The interface circuit also includes transmit logic connected in parallel with the transmit data path. The transmit logic responds to bit patterns in the data on the transmit data path to selectively gate the output of a keep-alive oscillator onto the transmit simplex fiber.