Method for providing temporary registers in a local bus device b

Details Method for providing temporary registers in a local bus device b Method for providing temporary registers in a local bus device b

1997-06-20

1999-07-27

Lee, Thomas C.

Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/

Input/output data processing

Peripheral configuration

710 10, 710104, 713100, G06F 1336, G06F 1202

Patent

active

059283386

ABSTRACT:
In PCI devices, there are bits specified as read-only for use in configuring a system upon reset that could also be used after configuration for reading and writing. The present invention allows the use of such bit locations for other arbitrary user-defined purposes such as a mailbox register without interfering with the normal PCI local bus operation or configuration and with zero or minimum additional decode circuitry. Such user-defined registers can provide flag or mailbox type storage for various applications, and may be accessed by a configuration read/write cycle from otherwise normal memory or I/O based applications. Thus, the present invention, in effect, comprises a method for exploiting an otherwise unused storage resource in PCI or other local bus compatible devices.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4771405 (1988-09-01), Burch et al.
patent: 5187792 (1993-02-01), Dayan et al.
patent: 5253355 (1993-10-01), Grieff
patent: 5748922 (1998-05-01), Smith et al.
patent: 5815734 (1998-09-01), Lee et al.
Andrew S. Tanenbaum, "Structured Computer Organization," Third Edition, 1990, Prentice-Hall International, Inc., Chapter 6, pp. 324-327.

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