Did You Know...
...that one person who claimed to be the inventor of the television is Russian emigre Vladimir Zworykin? In 1929 David Sarnoff, founder of RCA, asked Zworykin what it would take to develop TV for commercial use. He said: a year and a half and $100,000. In reality, it took 20 years and $50 million! Before his death in 1982 at the age of 92, Zworykin said of his invention: "The technique is wonderful. It is beyond my expectations. But the programs! I would never let my children even come close to this thing."
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 6301673 | Suspend/resume capability for a protected mode microprocessor A laptop computer system includes a protected mode microprocessor capable of operating in restricted and unrestricted modes, and an arrangement which in response to a predetermined condition saves information from the processor and then forcibly switches ... | 10/09/2001 |
| 6193422 | Implementation of idle mode in a suspend/resume microprocessor system A portable computer system includes an input device such as a keyboard, a display, and a processor which is operable in a normal operational mode and in a reduced power mode, the processor carrying out program execution in each of the normal operational m... | 02/27/2001 |
| 6115548 | Method and apparatus for interfacing data signal and associated clock signal to circuit controlled by local clock signal A method and apparatus for interfacing a serial data signal having an associated data clock signal to a circuit, which is clocked at a slightly higher local clock frequency, employs a D-type flip-flop to sample the data clock signal at the local clock fre... | 09/05/2000 |
| 6035123 | Determining hardware complexity of software operations A new class of general purpose computers called Programmable Reduced Instruction Set Computers (PRISC) use RISC techniques a basis for operation. In addition to the conventional RISC instructions, PRISC computers provide hardware programmable resources wh... | 03/07/2000 |
| 6016393 | System and method for distributed computation based upon the movement, execution, and interaction of processes in a network A distributed computing environment in which agent processes direct their own movement through a computer network. Place processes provide a computing context within which agent processes are interpreted. An agent process controls its movement from one pl... | 01/18/2000 |
| 6003131 | Computer system with a variety of applications and method for operating the same A provided computer system has a variety of additional application functions such as television, audio, video, communication, game, home automation functions, etc., as well as general mathematical computation and logic functions. Also, the system has a sw... | 12/14/1999 |
| 5991875 | System configuration card One embodiment of the present invention relates to a user configurable computer-based system having a processor with an input/output ("I/O") bus. The system comprises a configuration card having non-volatile memory containing computer instructions governi... | 11/23/1999 |
| 5987528 | Controlling the flow of electronic information through computer hardware A method for controlling flow, through a computer hardware resource, of information to and from computer applications. When a flow of information is initiated from one of the applications, a determination is made whether the resource is being accessed by ... | 11/16/1999 |
| 5983345 | Circuit for initializing and monitoring a microprocessor A circuit for initializing and monitoring the proper operation of a microprocessor. Both reset procedures, the power-on reset and the operating reset, are performed by a digital circuit.... | 11/09/1999 |
| 5978912 | Network enhanced BIOS enabling remote management of a computer without a functioning operating system A method and system of communicating with a computer through a network prior to booting the computer's operating system or after operating system failure is provided. A multitasking kernel is implemented in a network enhanced BIOS. External references in ... | 11/02/1999 |
| 5974261 | Method and apparatus facilitating use of a hard disk drive in a computer system having suspend/resume capability A computer system has a processing unit with suspend/resume capability, a memory, and a hard disk drive. In response to a first command from the processor, the hard disk drive sends its status to the processor and the processor stores it in the memory. In... | 10/26/1999 |
| 5974468 | Controlling the flow of electronic information through a modem A method for controlling flow, through a computer hardware resource, of information to and from computer applications. When a flow of information is initiated from one of the applications, a determination is made whether the resource is being accessed by ... | 10/26/1999 |
| 5974250 | System and method for secure information transmission over a network A computer network system having a plurality of nodes, one of which is adapted as an administrator node, the administrator node for securely receiving code information from a code provider disposed external to the network system and for securely sending t... | 10/26/1999 |
| 5964875 | Method and apparatus for identification of features associated with computers Improved techniques for facilitating identification of a computer system's hardware features to software executing on the computer system are disclosed. In one embodiment, the software is system management software that serves to monitor and control the c... | 10/12/1999 |
| 5966531 | Apparatus and method for providing decoupled data communications between software processes A communication interface for decoupling one software application from another software application such communications between applications are facilitated and applications may be developed in modularized fashion. The communication interface is comprised... | 10/12/1999 |
| 5963738 | Computer system for reading/writing system configuration using I/O instruction When a BIOS driver call request is generated in an environment of an OS operating in a protect mode, an IN or OUT instruction is executed to cause an I/O trap SMI generator to generate an I/O trap SMI. The mode of a CPU is switched from the protect mode t... | 10/05/1999 |
| 5960213 | Dynamically reconfigurable multi-function PCI adapter device A PCI compliant device having an internal function and a secondary PCI port for a second PCI device having additional functions. The device adapts its internal function and memory and the functions and memory of the second PCI device such that the host sy... | 09/28/1999 |
| 5960206 | Method and apparatus for estimating installation time in a data processing system A method and apparatus for estimating the time needed to install software. Configuration information about the data processing system is obtained, as well as information about data needing conversion that is stored on the system. The stand-alone installat... | 09/28/1999 |
| 5951685 | Computer system with system ROM including serial-access PROM coupled to an auto-configuring memory controller and method of shadowing BIOS code from PROM A computer system having a processor is provided with a memory controller serially coupled to a serial-access programmable read-only-memory ROM (PROM) through a serial PROM interface of the controller. A random-access memory controller randomly accesses t... | 09/14/1999 |
| 5951700 | Methods of computer system usage determination based on hard disk drive activity A method of determining a pattern of usage of a computer system. The method may be performed by a computer (1) having a bootable writable storage medium and (2) executing a usage-monitor program stored in the boot-up portion of the storage medium. The met... | 09/14/1999 |
| 5948101 | Methods and systems for booting a computer in a distributed computing system A field mountable controller boots by transmitting a seed letterbug to a server. The server responds with an initial operating system and program. The program reads configuration information about the controller and transmits it back to the server which r... | 09/07/1999 |
| 5944819 | Method and system to optimize software execution by a computer using hardware attributes of the computer A method and system are disclosed which allow software to communicate with a computer at run-time. The communication provided enables the software to execute at optimal speed on different computers. More particularly, software queries a computer at run-ti... | 08/31/1999 |
| 5940614 | Hypertext control method and apparatus for displaying help information in an interactive data processing system A hypertext network and a method for displaying user selectable information modules in a hypertext network are provided for use in an interactive data processing system. The hypertext network includes a plurality of user selectable information modules. At... | 08/17/1999 |
| 5938764 | Apparatus for improved storage of computer system configuration information A computer system and method is described for improved storage of computer system configuration information. A ROM module includes both a BIOS ROM portion and a configuration ROM portion. The configuration ROM includes a backup copy of the system configur... | 08/17/1999 |
| 5937198 | Field configurable embedded computer system An apparatus and method for downloading firmware upgrades to a targeted remote field configurable embedded computer system over a computer network. The targeted device need not be disconnected from the network and requires no human intervention at the rem... | 08/10/1999 |
| 5931918 | Parallel I/O network file server architecture A file server architecture is disclosed, comprising as separate processors, a network controller unit, a file controller unit and a storage processor unit. These units incorporate their own processors, and operate in parallel with a local Unix host proces... | 08/03/1999 |
| 5933646 | Software manager for administration of a computer operating system A software manager enables a computer user to administer software elements within a computer operating system. The software manager comprises a configuration database storing information including a prevailing state and a dependency listing for each of th... | 08/03/1999 |
| 5930504 | Dynamic nonvolatile memory update in a computer system An improved process for updating a nonvolatile memory of a computer system includes selecting a logical area of the nonvolatile memory to update. Protected procedures are copied from one of the selected logical area and an update file. Information from th... | 07/27/1999 |
| 5922071 | Learning commands which automatically launch a computer program A method for controlling flow, through a computer hardware resource, of information to and from computer applications. When a flow of information is initiated from one of the applications, a determination is made whether the resource is being accessed by ... | 07/13/1999 |
| 5913058 | System and method for using a real mode bios interface to read physical disk sectors after the operating system has loaded and before the operating system device drivers have loaded A system and method for using real mode BIOS calls to load an executable program for execution on a dedicated I/O processor before device drivers which communicate with the I/O processor have been loaded by an operating system. In the preferred embodiment... | 06/15/1999 |
| 5913057 | Hidden headers for protecting computer system data A request is received from a caller to perform a read of data from a storage area of a computer system, the data having master header data in a header portion. The master header data is replaced with alternate header data before returning the data to the ... | 06/15/1999 |
| 5909577 | Determining dynamic properties of programs Techniques for obtaining information about dynamic properties of a first program. The techniques involve making a static analysis of the first program to determine what instrumentation is needed to produce the desired information and then producing a seco... | 06/01/1999 |
| 5901311 | Access key protection for computer system data A status parameter is set for a storage area of a computer system to a read-only status. An access key is received from an access key call by a caller. The status parameter is changed to a write-permissible status if the access key matches a master access... | 05/04/1999 |
| 5898872 | Software reconfiguration engine Single users or workgroups interact with the reconfiguration engine through the software reconfiguration workbench. The target source code is reconfigured through a collection of semi-automated and fully automated processes in a step-by-step iterative tec... | 04/27/1999 |
| 5892942 | Control system with microcomputer and associated electrically reconfigurable logic circuit A control system adaptable for use in controlling internal combustion engines has a microcomputer and a hardware circuit reconfigurable in internal logic circuitry in such a manner that the setting of configuration is completed before the microcomputer is... | 04/06/1999 |
| 5892943 | Shared bios ROM warm boot An interface that allows the host CPU and the keyboard controller in a PC to share a common BIOS ROM includes a logic circuit that receives a set of input signals and produces a set of signals that emulates a jump instruction op-code that causes the host ... | 04/06/1999 |
| 5887163 | Method and apparatus for providing dual booting capabilities to a computer system A method for providing dual booting capabilities to a computer system is disclosed. The invention facilitates the installation of a plurality of operating systems on a computer system in any order such that the computer system is able to boot from any of ... | 03/23/1999 |
| 5887162 | Memory device having circuitry for initializing and reprogramming a control operation feature A synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) device having a master control circuit for accepting a first command and a second command and having an initialization and reprogramming circuit. The master control circuit generates an initialization sig... | 03/23/1999 |
| 5887168 | Computer program product for a shared queue structure for data integrity A shared queue is provided to allow any of a plurality of systems to process messages received by clients of a data processing environment. A received message is enqueued onto the shared queue. Any of the plurality of systems having available processing c... | 03/23/1999 |
| 5881281 | Method and apparatus for automatically loading configuration data on reset into a host adapter integrated circuit Configuration data indicative of interface requirements for interfacing to a host adapter card are automatically serially loaded on reset from an external device on the card into a host adapter integrated circuit on the card. A driver program can then rea... | 03/09/1999 |
