Method of polling to determine service needs and the like
March 27, 2010. 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.Patent References 3795895 Common polling logic for input/output interrupt or cycle steal data transfer requests Adaptive polling technique Electronic polling and calling communication system Multipoint polling technique Polling and data communication system having a pulse position to binary address conversion circuit Reception and transmission system for polling apparatus Passive data monitor for use with polling pattern generator in CATV system Electronic audience polling system Polling pattern generator for CATV system InventorApplicationNo. 499971 filed on 03/27/1990US Classes:370/449, Polling340/3.51, Polling or roll call340/825.02, Tree or cascade340/825.52, Addressing710/220ACCESS POLLINGExaminersPrimary: Olms, Douglas W.Assistant: Ton, Dang International ClassH04J 003/02AbstractTis method provides high utilization collision free access to a digital pulse communications medium with priority provided by message class and/or terminal type, regardless of network topology. This is accomplished by utilizing a controller which broadcasts a series of polling frames to all terminals, the response to each of which is a single bit (pulse) from any terminal remaining eligible to respond. All responses to a poll are logically OR'ed by the network to provide a combined response frame at the controller, thus making the process ambivalent to collisions. A polling frame and associated response frame, called a polling cycle, determines one digit of a selected address. A terminal not selected in a given cycle is blocked from responding further, until its high order digit(s) are again selected. Each polling cycle is therefore context sensitive, thus maximizing the information flow per poll and minimizing data flow and network travel time per terminal selection. Each polling frame specifies the value of the address digit being tested, thereby giving the controller complete control of priority of network addresses to receive service. To provide priority by message class, the additional message class bits are prefixed to each terminal address, providing a unique address for each terminal/message class combination. Each terminal is then free to modify the prefix of its own address to specify message priority. | |
