System for designing an application program to be independent of I/O devices by utilizing application name, system name, and predetermined hardware specific parameters of data objects

A system for inputting data to, and outputting data from, an application program in a hardware independent manner, said system comprising:

• a first I/O device which has predetermined hardware specific parameters;
• means for assigning a system name to the first I/O device;
• means for storing application names and corresponding system names of a plurality of I/O devices as data objects in a device dictionary;
• means for determining an application name of the first I/O device in said device dictionary;
• means for determining the system name corresponding to the application name of said first I/O device whereby the hardware specific parameters of said first I/O device may be identified;
• means for loading a device module for said first I/O device that contains the hardware specific parameters and hardware specific instructions relating to said first I/O device as a data object;
• means for constructing a data object that contains at least said application name, said system name, and the predetermined hardware specific parameters of said first I/O device, and
• means for commanding the device module to input/output the data object for the first I/O device, whereby the device module executes the hardware specific instructions to the first I/O device to input/output the data object to/from the application program.

A system for managing flow of data between an application program and different input/output devices having unique data structures and hardware specific parameters, comprising,

• an object input/output manager for constructing data objects for input/output to/from input/output devices,
• an input/output device dictionary containing application names, system names, for each of the different input/output devices, the device dictionary providing to the object input/output manager system names and hardware specific parameters for input/output devices requested by the object input/output manager;
• device modules containing data structures and hardware specific code organized according to specific entry points invoked by the input/output manager for each input/output device;
• wherein the object input/output manager loads and queries a device module for a selected input/output device to obtain hardware specific parameters for the selected input/output device and constructs a data object for a selected input/output device which contains hardware specific parameters and hardware specific instructions for the selected input/output device, and commands a corresponding device module to input/output the data object by invoking the specific entry points in the device modules,
• whereby the device module executes the hardware specific instructions to the input/output device to input/output data to/from the application program.