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. 26, 1999
Filed:
Nov. 17, 1997
Marcus Kruschinski, Berlin, DE;
Francotyp-Postalia AG & Co., Birkenwerder, DE;
Abstract
In a method and apparatus for improving data integrity using a ring buffer, a ring buffer is formed by at least one of the memory areas of a non-volatile read-write memory being administered by a pointer counter such that a ring buffer that can be read out and written is produced in a non-volatile read-write memory. The ring buffer composed of a number of memory cells needed for conventional operation, expanded by one additional memory cell, and a cyclical pointer counter. The oldest dataset is overwritten in a write operation, and whereby the pointer counter is incremented after the new dataset was written into a memory cell in which the oldest dataset was previously located, so that the pointer of the aforementioned pointer counter now points to a memory cell having what is now an oldest dataset that can be overwritten in the next write operation. A microprocessor connected to the memory in which the ring buffer is formed is programmed to ignore the respective memory cell to which the pointer points for any and all read accesses. The readout of a dataset from the other memory cells, however, is enabled.