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. 20, 1998
Filed:
Mar. 17, 1997
Bruce Gerard Mealey, Austin, TX (US);
Randal Craig Swanberg, Round Rock, TX (US);
Michael Stephen Williams, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An improved operating system for a computer provides support for specific hardware components. The operating system is loaded by first loading a base portion which initializes the operating system and determines the particular type of hardware components present. Then, appropriate software components are loaded that are specifically associated with the hardware components. The hardware components can be detected by leaving a trace in the memory device that is associated with the software component and later retrieving the trace, or by testing the computer for the hardware component. The hardware component may be a bus architecture selected from a group of bus architectures, and bus-independent interfaces are defined which are mapped to addresses in the kernel. Alternatively, the software component can include a which contains specific instructions for communicating with the hardware component. The is constructed from a plurality of files each associated with the hardware component.