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:
Oct. 31, 1995
Filed:
Dec. 30, 1993
Douglas E Morrissey, Exton, PA (US);
Edward T Cavanagh, Jr, Norristown, PA (US);
Kin H Ng, Glenmoore, PA (US);
Unisys Corporation, Blue Bell, PA (US);
Abstract
Apparatus is provided for use in an Input/Output (I/O) subsystem. The I/O subsystem is coupled to a serial data transfer medium that transmits data from a sender to a recipient. The I/O subsystem processes a frame comprising user defined data and frame control data. The frame is received over the serial data transfer medium. The apparatus includes a mechanism for receiving and validating the frame from the serial data transfer medium. The receiving mechanism transmits the user defined data to a first-in, first-out (FIFO) buffer. A mechanism is provided for forming a block header. The block header comprises control data that are used by the recipient of the user defined data. The block header forming mechanism is distinct from the FIFO buffer. A switching mechanism is coupled to receive the block header and a subset of the user defined data. The recipient has a parallel storage medium. The switching mechanism transmits either the block header or the subset of the user defined data to the parallel storage medium. A control mechanism provides signals to configure the switching mechanism to alternately transmit the block header and the subset of the user defined data to the parallel storage medium. By alternating the block header and data, a data block is formed having a size that equals the native sector size of the recipient.