Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-30
2001-10-23
Bayerl, Raymond J. (Department: 2773)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000, C345S960000, C709S223000, C709S224000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06307546
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a craft interface device for executing maintenance and provisioning operations in a telecommunications system. This also invention relates to an associated method.
A Litespan™ -type telecommunications system is a group of one or more Litespan™ terminals connected together, for example, in a chain configuration by optical fiber. Each Litespan™ terminal comprises a rack or other enclosure with multiple banks each having a printed circuit board “backplane.” These printed circuit boards each have a plurality, e.g., sixty-five, of numerically ordered slots in which various cards, such as fiber cards and subscriber line cards, are vertically disposed.
Each Litespan™ terminal includes a common control (CC) bank and a number of subscriber banks (fiber banks, channel bahks) for various kinds of fiber connections and various kinds of subscriber drops such as POTS, ISDN, HFC, etc. A fiber bank includes one backplane, power supplies, plug-in bank control units and fiber cards. A channel bank includes a single backplane, power supplies, plug-in bank control units and subscriber line cards. Each remote terminal (RT) access multiplexer communicates on one or both sides with a fiber span and may also include various types of subscriber drops. A local telephone company can begin operations with rack shelves only partially filled with backplanes and with the backplane slots only partially occupied and fill in the remaining backplanes and slots as the number of subscribers and service requirements increase.
In a Central Office (CO) of a telephone company, one terninal, called the Central Office Terminal (COT), has an interface to a digital cross-connect switch (DCS) and communicates with the chain of remote terminals (RT's) through one or two fiber spans. The remote terminals are typically located at geographically diverse locations in order to bring telecommunications service to different service areas.
Terminals can also include Broadband Fiber Banks (BFB's) which connect on one side to the terminal's common control and on another side to a number ot distribution fibers. The distribution fibers connect to fuirther optical network units (ONU's) such as a so-called “brick,” a Broadband Remote Transceiver (BRX), or a VEX. These ONU's take fiber on one side and on the other side provide narrowband and broadband services over copper to a number of subscribers.
In order to perform maintenance and provisioning operations on the Litespan™ system, a craftsperson may use a Litecraft™ product, which is a PC-based product which can be plugged into a COT or RT. Upon connection of a Litecraft™ to a system terminal, for (example, via a serial port of the PC and a data link the, Litecraft™ product downloads configuration information from the system using a standard telephony communication language, TL-1, and presents the configuration information graphically to the user, beginning with a top-level diagram of the overall system. This top-level diagram shows a configuration of terminals and their operational relationships or connections to each other. When the user clicks on a component of the system, the Litecraft™ product retrieves information about that component and presents the retrieved infonnation graphically to the user. This presentation is a number of levels deep, enabling the user first to see the overall system, then to see components in an individual terminal, then to see individual access multiplexers within a terminal, then to see individual cards within an access multiplexer. Moreover the user can open multiple windows and browse through the entire system independently in each such window.
In order to perform its various tasks, a Litecraft™ product must download extensive configuration information about the system to which it is connected. Such downloading is usually implemented via TL-1 across a serial communications link. The information is obtained from various terminals in the system.
It is necessary for the Litecraft™ craft interface device to parse the incoming TL-1 data blocks which contain the system information. Parsing of any language is!generally accomplished using software state machines, or “finite state automata.” In the article “Object Oriented State Machines,” Software Development Magazine, September, 1993, Ted Faison discusses generally a way to construct finite state automata using “state objects” to represent various parsing states.
Objects of the Invention
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved maintenance and provisioning device for a telecommunications system and/or an improved method for accessing a telecommunications system for maintenance and provisioning purposes.
Another, more particular, object of the present invention is to provide such a telecommunications system maintenance and provisioning device and/or method wherein the handling of autonomous notifications or reports is facilitated.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a telecommunications system maintenance and provisioning device and/or method wherein error recovery is facilitated.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the drawings and descriptions provided hereinafter.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed generally to a craft interface device for accessing, maintaining and provisioning a telecommunications network. The craft interface device has a parser which includes an object-oriented state machine. The object oriented state machine includes a current state object whose state is one of a plurality of different possible states some of different classes. More specifically, a craf interface device for maintaining and provisioning operations in a telecommunications network comprises, in accord nce with the present invention, a graphical user interface, a domain modeling framework, and a communications framework which includes a parser. The graphical user interface is operatively connected to a monitor for displaying thereon structural components of the telecommunications network and for indicating, on the monitor, operating relationships among the structural components. The domain modeling framework is operatively connected to the graphical user interface for supplying thereto descriptions of the objects to be displayed. The communications framework is operatively connected to the domain modeling framework for generating and transmitting, in response to user commands detected by the graphical user interface, data requests over a data link of the network and for reading data lines arriving from the network. The parser includes an object-oriented state machine operatively connected to the communications framework for parsing information from an incoming sequence of data lines or events, The parser, via the domain model, is operatively connected to the graphical user interface for providing information thereto for display, The state machine includes a current state object taken from a group of diflfrent possible state objects each transformable into at least one of the other state objects in resporse to an incoming message of a given type.
The parser also includes a lexer and a response block object. The lexer, a class object, generates symbols in response to incoming data lines or events. More specifically, the lexer retrieves a line (event) of an incoming data block, categorizes the line, and sends the information to the current state object. The current state object is operatively coupled to the response block object for storing, in the response block object, information extracted from the data lines or events.
In accordance with a special feature of the present invention, the parser can generate and incorporate multiple response block objects holding information from respective data responses or autonomous reports. Earlier generated response block objects have pointers which identify subsequently generated response block objects and thereby establish a hierarchical tree structure. In accordance with the tree structure, earlier response blo
Ranney Linda
Thompson Peter
Wickham Gregory
Alcatel USA Sourcing L.P.
Bayerl Raymond J.
Jackson & Walker, LLP
Joseph Thomas J
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