Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/ – Input/output data processing – Input/output command process
Reexamination Certificate
2001-06-28
2004-09-14
Elamin, A. (Department: 2116)
Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/
Input/output data processing
Input/output command process
C710S039000, C710S052000, C348S316000, C375S240010, C375S240030, C375S240150
Reexamination Certificate
active
06792476
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a record medium, an information processing apparatus, and a method, in particular to, those that allow a hardware device necessary for processing information to be easily changed or modified.
In addition, the present invention relates to a record medium, an information processing apparatus, a method that allow a current process to be quickly restored from an abnormality.
BACKGROUND ART
FIG. 1
shows an example of the functional structure of an encoder
10
that composes a delivery side apparatus of a conventional music delivery service system (an example of the structure of a program for an encoding process). The delivery side apparatus of the music delivery service system comprises the encoder
10
, a controlling terminal unit (not shown), and a server (not shown). The controlling terminal unit controls the encoding process of the encoder
10
. The server supplies music data that is encoded (hereinafter, referred to as PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) non-compressed music data) to the encoder
10
, stores music data encoded by the encoder
10
(hereinafter, this data is referred to as PCM compressed music data), and delivers the PCM compressed music data to a user (reception side) of the music delivery service.
The encoder
10
contains hardware devices that are a (first) network card, a (second) network card, and an encode card. The first network card controls a communication with an alarm LAN (alarm Local Area network) to which control data for controlling the encoding process is transferred. The second network card controls a communication with a medium LAN to which PCM non-compressed music data and PCM compressed music data (hereinafter, when it is not necessary to distinguish them, they are simply referred to as music data). The encode card executes the encoding process.
The program for the encoding process shown in
FIG. 1
is composed of five process portions (elements denoted by solid line boxes) that are a control data input—output process portion
11
, a network card driver process portion
12
, a main process portion
13
, a network card driver process portion
14
, and an encode card driver process portion
15
. Each process portion is composed of an executable program. Each process portion manages data areas (such as buffers and registers). Each process portion is independently executed.
The control data input—output process portion
11
communicates with the main process portion
13
. The control data input—output process portion
11
receives various commands for the encoding process from the controlling terminal unit through the network card driver process portion
12
and outputs the received commands to the main process portion
13
. In addition, the control data input—output process portion
11
outputs messages supplied from the main process portion
13
(the messages are for example a message that represents that the encoding process has been successfully completed and an error message that represents that the encoding process has failed) to the controlling terminal unit through the network card driver process portion
12
. When it is not necessary to distinguish commands and error messages exchanged between the control data input—output process portion
11
and the main process portion
13
, they are simply referred to as control data.
The main process portion
13
receives for example PCM non-compressed music data from the server (not shown) through the network card driver process portion
14
. The network card driver process portion
14
supplies the received PCM non-compressed music data to the encode card through the encode card driver process portion
15
. In addition, the main process portion
13
controls the encode card through the encode card driver process portion
15
so as to execute the encoding process corresponding to control data supplied from the control data input—output process portion
11
. In this example, the encode card executes an encoding process corresponding to the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) 1 layer
2
standard with a sampling frequency of 48 KHz (hereinafter, this encoding process is referred to as MPEG 1 based encoding process) or an encoding process corresponding to ATRAC (adaptive transform acoustic coding) 1 (trademark) standard with a sampling frequency of 44.1 KHz (hereinafter, this encoding process is referred to as ATRAC 1 based encoding process).
The main process portion
13
receives PCM compressed music data that has been encoded from the encode card through the encode card driver process portion
15
and supplies the received data to the server through the network card driver process portion
14
.
Next, the control data input—output process portion
11
and the main process portion
13
will be described. The control data input—output process portion
11
is composed of three programs (elements denoted by dotted line boxes in
FIG. 1
) that are a controlling portion
21
, a network card input I/F (interface)
22
, and a network card output I/F
23
and data areas necessary for executing those programs.
The network card input I/F
22
receives control data from the controlling terminal unit through the network card driver process portion
12
and outputs the received control data to the controlling portion
21
. The network card output I/F
23
receives for example an error message from the main process portion
13
through the controlling portion
21
and outputs the received error message to the network card driver process portion
12
.
The controlling portion
21
controls the network card input I/F
22
and the network card output I/F
23
. In addition, the controlling portion
21
communicates with a controlling portion
31
of the main process portion
13
.
Next, the structure of the main process portion
13
will be described. The main process portion
13
comprises seven programs (elements denoted by dotted boxes) that are a controlling portion
31
, a network card input—output I/F
32
, an encode engine input—output I/F
33
, an encode engine input—output I/F
34
, an encode engine
35
, an encode card input—output I/F
36
, and an encode card input—output I/F
37
and data areas necessary for executing those programs.
The network card input—output I/F
32
receives PCM non-compressed music data through the network card driver process portion
14
and outputs the received data to the controlling portion
31
. In addition, the network card input—output I/F
32
receives PCM compressed music data from the controlling portion
31
and outputs the data to the network card driver process portion
14
.
The encode engine input—output I/F
33
receives PCM non-compressed music data that is encoded corresponding to the ATRAC 1 based encoding process through the controlling portion
31
and outputs the received PCM non-compressed music data to the encode engine
35
. In addition, the encode engine input—output I/F
33
receives PCM compressed music data that has been encoded corresponding to the ATRAC 1 based encoding process from the encode engine
35
and outputs the received PCM compressed music data to the controlling portion
31
.
The encode engine input—output I/F
34
receives PCM non-compressed music data that is encoded corresponding to the MPEG 1 based encoding process through the controlling portion
31
and outputs the received PCM non-compressed music data to the encode engine
35
. In addition, the encode engine input—output I/F
34
receives PCM compressed music data that has been encoded corresponding to the MPEG 1 based encoding process from the encode engine
35
and outputs the received PCM compressed music data to the controlling portion
31
.
The encode card input—output I/F
36
receives PCM non-compressed music data that is encoded corresponding to the ATRAC 1 based encoding process through the controlling portion
31
and outputs the received PCM non-compressed music data to the encode card driver process portion
15
. In addition, the encode card input—output I/F
36
receives PCM compressed music data that has been encoded corresponding
Elamin A.
Frommer William S.
Frommer & Lawrence & Haug LLP
Simon Darren M.
Sony Corporation
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