Automatic identification of computer systems

Details Automatic identification of computer systems Automatic identification of computer systems

2000-05-10

2003-07-29

Butler, Dennis M. (Department: 2185)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support

Digital data processing system initialization or configuration

Reexamination Certificate

active

06601164

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a system for recognising different parts or different usages of the same part used in the manufacture of different variants of data processing equipment and for automatically configuring the data processing equipment accordingly.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the manufacture of conventional data processing equipment such as personal computers, different variants of the same type of personal computer and different types of personal computer are frequently manufactured on the same production line. These different variants and types have differences that are inherent to the build process. As an example, the same personal computer may be available in a rack variant for fitting into a conventional standardised rack and it may also be available in a tower variant, supplied in its own enclosure. The personal computer may be shipped to the end-user as a tower variant and the end-user may purchase separately a conversion kit to enable the tower variant to be converted to a rack variant.
In the above example of a system having the same electrical characteristics being available in both tower and rack variants, the different variants have different parts such as plastic bezels or the same electrical parts, such as Light Emitting Diode (LED) panels, which are mounted in different positions during build for the two variants.
During manufacture of such systems, there are frequent misconfiguration errors due to the need for a manufacturing operator (or for an end-user) to access non-obvious jumpers to configure a system for rack use or for tower use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,390 discloses a system for automatically recognising persons or objects as they move past a selected location and for classifying the person or objects in accordance with selected criteria. The system recognises multiple objects and provides statistical information as to the distribution of a parameter associated with the objects. The recognition system uses light beams reflected off the persons or objects. The patent describes a means of monitoring the profile of an object and determining compliance with known profile criteria for use in manufacturing and industrial process control. The information derived is not sent or stored in the object itself.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide a system and method which would recognise the difference between models of the same basic type of data processing equipment and between different types of data processing equipment and configure the data processing equipment accordingly.
The present invention provides apparatus for automatically determining the variant of a data processing system, the data processing system having one or more portions which are present or absent, the apparatus comprising: one or more means for emitting light; one or more means for detecting light from said one or more means for emitting light, the light being detected when said one or more portions are absent and not being detected when said one or more portions are present; means, responsive to said means for detecting light, for determining the variant of the data processing system; means, responsive to the means for determining the variant, for configuring the data processing system as the variant. This allows the use of a single part number for multiple variants of a data processing system, eliminates the use of jumper assemblies and allows automatic configuration of a system. Errors associated with incorrectly fitted jumpers are also eliminated.
In a first embodiment, the means for emitting and the means for detecting are part of the data processing system.
In a second embodiment, the means for emitting and the means for detecting are separate from the data processing system.
Preferably, the means for emitting is an infra-red light emitting diode and the means for detecting is an infra-red detector.
Further preferably, the means for configuring the data processing system as the variant includes a non-volatile memory.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5305390 (1994-04-01), Frey et al.
patent: 5742238 (1998-04-01), Fox
patent: 6020957 (2000-02-01), Rosengaus et al.
patent: 6064429 (2000-05-01), Belk et al.
patent: 6149719 (2000-11-01), Houle

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