Multicomputer communication system

Patent 4493021 Issued on January 8, 1985. Estimated Expiration Date:

January 8, 2002. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

Patent References

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Inventors

Assignee

The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the

Application

No. 06/250585 filed on 04/03/1981

US Classes:

709/236, Computer-to-computer data framing709/245COMPUTER-TO-COMPUTER DATA ADDRESSING

Examiners

Primary: Chan, Eddie P.

Attorney, Agent or Firm

International Classes

H04L 29/00 (20060101)
H04L 12/18 (20060101)

Abstract

A local area network is provided for a plurality of autonomous computers (10) which operate at different rates and under different protocols coupled by network bus adapters (12) to a global bus (14). A host computer (HC) divides a message file to be transmitted into blocks, each with a header that includes a data type identifier and a trailer. The associated network bus adapter (NBA) then divides the data into packets, each with a header to which a transport header and trailer is added with frame type code which specifies one of three modes of addressing in the transmission of data, namely a physical address mode for computer to computer transmission using two bytes for source and destination addresses, a logical address mode and a data type mode. In the logical address mode, one of the two addressing bytes contains a logical channel number (LCN) established between the transmitting and one or more receiving computers. In the data type mode, one of the addressing bytes contains a code identifying the type of data. Every NBA initialized to accept specified types of data will automatically accept all data of the types it is conditioned to accept. Protocol handling is carried out by a module in each NBA.