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:
Feb. 21, 1995
Filed:
Jun. 22, 1992
Stephen P Thompson, Delray Beach, FL (US);
International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and system for monitoring and controlling access to a system bus in a computer system is provided. The system devices include a central processing unit, a memory controller for controlling access to system memory, and at least first and second input/output devices each having a coprocessor incorporated therein. The system bus electrically interconnects the system devices and system memory. Any one of the system devices may serve as a bus master of the system bus at any one time when communicating over the bus with each other or with system memory. In addition, the memory controller may serve as a bus master on behalf of a slave device requesting access to the system bus. The input/output devices have control logic incorporated therein for (i) determining when an alternate input/output device requests control of the bus, (ii) outputting a preemption signal in response to the alternate request, and (iii) relinquishing control of the bus in response to the preemption signal.