Boots – shoes – and leggings
Patent
1984-12-04
1987-09-08
Williams, Jr., Archie E.
Boots, shoes, and leggings
G06F 906
Patent
active
046928618
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to microcomputers with interprocess communication and is an improvement relating to the microcomputer described in our copending European Patent Application 83307078.2, Japanese Patent Application No. 221455/1983 and U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 552,601, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,698, 552,602, now abandoned, 553,027, now abandoned, 553,028 and 553,029.
BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION
The above mentioned applications describe an improved microcomputer comprising a single integrated circuit device having a processor and memory in the form of RAM on the same integrated circuit device, the processor being arranged to operate in accordance with functions selected from a function set. Said function set includes direct functions and indirect functions, the indirect functions being used to select one of a variety of "operations". Said operations include the operation "synchronise" which is used to permit two processes to communicate with each other, the two processes being either on the same microcomputer or in other cases the two processes may be on separate respective microcomputers. As can be seen from the above mentioned patent applications, use of the operation "synchronise" has required two word locations in memory to provide a channel permitting process to process communication on the same microcomputer. One word of the channel was used to indicate the state of the channel and the other word was used to hold data for communication through the channel. Furthermore, process to process communication requires that each process includes in its program sequence two operations of "synchronise" for each message transmission in order to ensure that the message transmission occurs when the two processes are at corresponding stages in their program sequences. In some circumstances this may cause a process to be descheduled twice in order to effect synchronised message transmission.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved microcomputer wherein data transmission between processes may be effected by use of instructions which may result in improved performance due to the use of fewer instructions during process to process communication. It is an further object to implement a communication channel using less memory space.
In a preferred embodiment, the "synchronise" operation referred to in the above mentioned patent applications can be replaced by "input" and "output" operations as described below.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
The present invention provides a microcomputer comprising memory and a processor arranged to execute a plurality of concurrent processes, each in accordance with a program consisting of a plurality of instructions for sequential execution by the processor, each instruction designating a required function to be executed by the processor, said processor comprising (1) a plurality of registers and data transfer means for use in data transfers to and from said registers (2) means for receiving each instruction and loading into one of the processor registers a value associated with the instruction, and (3) control means for controlling said data transfer means and registers in response to each instruction received to cause the processor to operate in accordance with the instruction, wherein the microcomputer includes: between a plurality of concurrent processes, said scheduling means comprising: awaiting execution by the processor current process another when both processes are at corresponding stages in their program sequences, an outputting process operating to output data in response to an output instruction in its program and an inputting process operating to input data in response to an input instruction in its program, said communication means including: a process has executed an instruction to effect data transmission using that channel, one of the processes involved in the data transmission when said one process is the current process for testing the contents of said channel and arranged to operate said means to de
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Chan Emily Y.
Inmos Limited
Manzo Edward D.
Williams Jr. Archie E.
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