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:
Jan. 04, 1994
Filed:
Aug. 31, 1990
Joseph C Elliott, Hopewell Junction, NY (US);
Eugene P Hefferon, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Allan S Meritt, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Martin W Sachs, Westport, CT (US);
Mark C Snedaker, Vestal, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
In a computer I/O system including a plurality of link-level facilities and a dynamic switch having a plurality of ports, each link-level facility being attached to an individual one of the ports, a mechanism and method for assigning a unique link level address to each of the link-level facilities. As each of the link-level facilities comes on line, it sends an acquire link address (ALA) frame and waits for a response (ACK) frame. The ALA frame may be addressed to a general to-whom-it-may-concern address and have a source address of who-am-I. Only a dynamic switch normally assigns link addresses. When receiving an ALA frame, the dynamic switch returns an ACK frame having a unique link address assigned to the sender of the ALA frame. Provision is made for determining if there is a dynamic switch present, or, if the link-level facilities are connected together by a static connection through the dynamic switch, for the link-level facility of a channel to assign the unique link addresses.