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. 21, 1996
Filed:
Mar. 14, 1994
Michael S Bender, Boulder Creek, CA (US);
Douglas McCallum, Louisville, CO (US);
Charles F Patton, Jr, Dublin, CA (US);
Duong M Vo, Milpitas, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A portable PCMCIA interface for a host computer having a system bus. In one embodiment, the host computer is a SPARC based computer having an SBus and running the UNIX operating system. The PCMCIA interface provides a user application with access to a PCMCIA card. In this embodiment, the PCMCIA interface includes software and hardware components. The software component includes a hardware-independent portion and a hardware-dependent portion. By implementing the software in a suitable high level language such as 'C', the software can be easily ported to other hardware platforms by merely adapting the hardware-dependent portion. The hardware component includes an ASIC coupled between the system bus and a couple of PCMCIA sockets. In some embodiments, the hardware also includes a 5 volt to 12 volt DC--DC converter between the system bus and the PCMCIA sockets.