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:
Mar. 25, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 04, 1995
Brandon J Mayfield, Round Rock, TX (US);
Chris A Schwendiman, Round Rock, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and system for assigning non-conflicting bus resources to a plurality of devices connected to that bus. The system provides for resolution of resources for all devices attached to the bus or for just a subset of the devices attached to the bus. The system provides for special types of relationships between bus resources; 'grouped' resources allow a device to control the selection of a value for one resource based on the value of a different resource, and 'shared' resources allow two or more different devices to share a single bus resource. First, a list of the devices attached to the bus is constructed, and for each device a list of the device's bus resources (attributes) is also constructed. The system then prunes unusable bus resource values from the attribute lists, based on what is allowed by the particular machine and bus to which the device is connected. The system then begins a search to find the first non-conflicting solution which will resolve each device in the device list in turn. If a device is determined to be irresolvable at any stage then the system continues to attempt to resolve any remaining devices. Some devices may share interrupt levels with other devices; this system attempts to assign unique and non-conflicting bus resources for all devices, but if a unique interrupt level assignment may not be made the system will attempt to find a suitable 'shareable' interrupt level currently assigned to another device which may also be assigned to the first device.