System and method for fault tolerant computing using generic hardware

7:

• The controller of claim 6, wherein the first instance of the process control application further performs a diagnostic routine to determine whether the first processor has experienced an error or the second processor has experienced an error when the first cyclic redundancy check and the second cyclic redundancy check disagree.

8:

• The controller of claim 7, wherein the first instance of the process control application further causes the second processor to assume a primary processing role and causes the first processor to assume a shadow processing role when the diagnostic routine determines that the first processor has experienced an error, wherein a processor assuming a shadow processing role does not transmit the data message.

9:

• The controller of claim 6, wherein the first instance of the process control application further does not transmit the data message comprising the first payload and the first cyclic redundancy check when the first cyclic redundancy check and the second redundancy check disagree.

10-15. (canceled)

16:

• The controller of claim 6, further comprising a message queue wherein the first payload and first cyclic redundancy check are stored in the message queue prior to being transmitted but after the first and second cyclic redundancy checks are compared.

17:

• The controller of claim 16, wherein the first cyclic redundancy check and the second cyclic redundancy check disagree during comparison and the first payload and first cyclic redundancy check are not stored in the message queue.

18:

• The controller of claim 16, wherein the first processor forms a third payload and a third cyclic redundancy check after storing the first payload and first cyclic redundancy check on the message queue.

19:

• The controller of claim 18, wherein a third processor executes instructions to transmit the first payload and first cyclic redundancy check from the message queue to a network destination.

20:

• The controller of claim 6, further comprising a first communication node, wherein the first instance of the process control application transmits the first payload and first cyclic redundancy check to the communication node.

21:

• The controller of claim 20, wherein the first communication node encapsulates the first payload and first cyclic redundancy check into a third payload and calculates a third cyclic redundancy check based on the third payload.

22:

• The controller of claim 21, wherein the first communication node transmits the third payload and third cyclic redundancy check to a second communication node in a different network location.

24:

• The method of claim 23, further comprising storing the first payload and the first cyclic redundancy check in a message queue.

25:

• The method of claim 24, wherein the transmitting of the data message comprises reading the stored first payload and the first cyclic redundancy check from the message queue to form the data message and transmitting the data message onto a network.

26:

• The method of claim 25, wherein the transmitting of the data message is executed by a transceiver processor of the dual redundant process controller.

27:

• The method of claim 23, wherein the transmitting further comprises transmitting the data message to a communication node.

28:

• The method of claim 27, further comprising encapsulating the data message into a third payload and calculating a third cyclic redundancy check based on the third payload by the communication node.

29:

• The method of claim 28, further comprising transmitting, by the communication node, the third payload and third cyclic redundancy check to a second communication node in a different network location.