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:
Apr. 08, 1997
Filed:
Jun. 30, 1995
Dan Kikinis, Saratoga, CA (US);
William J Seiler, Scotts Valley, CA (US);
Pascal Dornier, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
William S Jocobs, Santa Cruz, CA (US);
Elonex IP Holdings Ltd., London, GB;
Abstract
A bus interface system for expanding the I/O capability of a portable computer utilizes a parallel port connector with master interface circuitry connected to the internal ISA I/O bus of the portable computer and driving a 25-conductor Centronics-type cable as an intermediate bus. The master interlace circuitry is device-driver-transparent, and multiplexes address data, and control information over a byte-wide avenue of the intermediate bus according to premapped state translation tables. In a preferred embodiment a single peripheral I/O device comprising a slave circuitry may be connected to the 25-pin port, and the slave circuitry demultiplexes the intermediate bus states, providing a synthesized sub-set of ISA states to drive the peripheral device. In another embodiment a docking box comprises a bus with multiple I/O ports, such as a network port, a COM serial port, and additional floppy and hard disk drives. Power circuitry is provided for driving a single connected peripheral device, and for recharging a docked portable computer.