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:
Dec. 28, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 20, 1996
Yoshio Matsuoka, Tokyo, JP;
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Kanagawa-ken, JP;
Abstract
A PC card adapter and an I/O adapter as expansion devices respectively have discrimination circuits for outputting discrimination signals. A computer body has an expansion connector commonly used for the PC card adapter and the I/O card adapter, and an I/O controller. A selected one of the PC card adapter and the I/O adapter is connected to the expansion connector. The I/O controller has an input/output section commonly used for the PC card adapter and the I/O adapter and corresponding to the expansion connector, and a bus switching circuit for switching bus signal lines for input/output processing of interface signals input/output through the input/output section. With this arrangement, in a computer system using a plurality of types of expansion devices such as a PC card slot, a printer port, and a serial communication port, the number of input/output pins and the number of connectors of each controller for interfacing between a corresponding expansion device and the computer body can be decreased, thereby realizing reductions in the size and cost of the system.