Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – Data storage or retrieval
Patent
1994-11-29
1997-05-20
Harrison, Jessica
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
Data storage or retrieval
348 13, 3642813, 3649192, A63F 924
Patent
active
056307578
ABSTRACT:
A complete multi-user game playing environment is described which provides game playing services to cable television subscribers over existing cable networks. A game player located at the end of a cable network connection has a computer or other game playing device attached to the cable network through a front end adapter card. A game playing server is located at the cable headend and is equipped with back end communications cards for full duplex communications over the cable network with a plurality of game players. A plurality of uplink frequencies are used by the servers to communicate with the game players and a pluralities of downlink frequencies are used to communicate from the game players to the server. The communications are controlled by the server to prevent communication collision on the cable network over the same frequencies by having the server control a dynamically-changing time and frequency division multiple access protocol. The multi-user game playing server includes hardware and software where the game server includes a multi-threaded operating system which controls user access to a plurality of concurrently-operating games. The operating system allows users to join, play, change and quit any number of a plurality of provided games. Each of the plurality of concurrently operating games is a separate process in a multitasking environment while each of the operating threads are event-driven context-switched threads to control user access and communications over the cable network. The game playing information and game access information is traded between the server and the plurality of the game players using a predefined packet protocol which is very tolerant of lost packet data. The user's game equipment attached to the cable network includes devices such as personal computers, special set-top game controllers or existing video game playing equipment.
REFERENCES:
patent: Re32282 (1986-11-01), Baer
patent: 4572509 (1986-02-01), Sitrick
patent: 4856787 (1989-08-01), Itkis
patent: 5083800 (1992-01-01), Lockton
patent: 5220420 (1993-06-01), Hoarty et al.
patent: 5251909 (1993-10-01), Reed et al.
patent: 5283734 (1994-02-01), Von Kohorn
patent: 5319455 (1994-06-01), Hoarty et al.
patent: 5349682 (1994-09-01), Rosenberry
patent: 5361091 (1994-11-01), Hoarty et al.
patent: 5396630 (1995-03-01), Banda et al.
patent: 5412720 (1995-05-01), Hoarty
patent: 5414455 (1995-05-01), Hooper et al.
patent: 5423555 (1995-06-01), Kidrin
patent: 5434678 (1995-07-01), Abecasssis
patent: 5450410 (1995-09-01), Hluchyj et al.
patent: 5471474 (1995-11-01), Grobicki et al.
patent: 5473362 (1995-12-01), Fitzgerald et al.
patent: 5481542 (1996-01-01), Logston et al.
patent: 5485197 (1996-01-01), Hoarty
patent: 5489103 (1996-02-01), Okamoto
patent: 5499241 (1996-03-01), Thompson et al.
patent: 5504898 (1996-04-01), Klein
Isaac Kong, et al., "CableNet: A Local Area Network Reservation Scheme", IEEE Catalog No. 82 CH1739-2, pp. 182-186, (1982).
European Search Report for International Application No. EP 95 30 8511 completed on Mar. 11, 1996 by Examiner J. Wentzel. 3 pages.
Gagin Reuven
Livshitz Joseph
Sharon Erez
Harrison Jessica
Net Game Limited
LandOfFree
Real-time multi-user game communication system using existing ca does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Real-time multi-user game communication system using existing ca, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Real-time multi-user game communication system using existing ca will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1720516