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AssigneeCompaq Computer Corporation
InventorsGary J. Piccirillo, Mark W. Welker, John S. Thayer
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A circuit for configuring a Plug and Play expansion card in one of three ways. The first is the standard Plug and Play configuration method, wherein expansion cards go through the isolation process to obtain unique Card Select Numbers (CSN). This method requires the existence of a dedicated serial EEPROM to store the system resource data for the expansion cards. However, when an expansion card is directly mounted onto a system board, it becomes a system board device. This allows the separate serial EEPROM to be removed. To implement, two alternative configuration modes are provided, wherein the expansion card can be configured under main CPU control. In these alternative modes, the configuration data is stored in the main system BIOS ROM. In the first mode, a register in the expansion card is mapped to a fixed ISA I/O address. In the second mode, the register is controlled by a dedicated pin, thus allowing it to be mapped to any ISA I/O address. To determine which configuration mode is used by the expansion card, pullup or pulldown resistors are connected to certain expansion card output pins. A second embodiment is also described wherein a static random access memory (SRAM) is utilized to store the serial identifier and the resource data. In this embodiment, the system BIOS initially writes the serial identifier and resource data into the SRAM. After this is done, a Plug and Play configuration process is invoked, in which the serial identifier is retrieved from the SRAM rather than the serial EEPROM.
An improved expansion bus device for use with a computer system having both said improved expansion bus device and other expansion bus devices, wherein the computer system can obtain device specific initialization information from the other expansion bus devices which individually include a nonvolatile storage device for storing such initialization information and wherein the computer system provides configuration information to both said improved expansion bus device and to said other expansion bus devices based on the initialization information according to a predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence, and wherein the computer system can further store appropriate configuration information on the improved expansion bus device and provide the configuration information to the improved expansion bus device without utilizing said predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence, said improved expansion bus device having first and second configuration modes, wherein a non-volatile storage device for storing said initialization information is connected to said improved expansion bus device for configuration mode operation, said improved expansion bus device comprising:
An improved expansion bus device for use with a computer system having both said improved expansion bus device and other expansion bus device, wherein the computer system can obtain device specific initialization information from the other expansion bus devices which individually include a non-volatile storage device for storing such initialization information and wherein the computer system provides configuration information to both said improved expansion bus device and to said other expansion bus devices based on the initialization information according to a predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system can further store initialization information on the improved expansion bus device and provide the initialization information to the improved expansion bus device prior to utilizing said predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system including non-volatile memory for storing system BIOS information and wherein said initialization information is stored in said non-volatile memory, said improved expansion bus device having first and second configuration modes, wherein a non-volatile storage device for storing said initialization information is connected to said improved expansion bus device for first configuration mode operation, said improved expansion bus device comprising:
An improved expansion bus device for use with a computer system having both said improved expansion bus device and other expansion bus device, wherein the computer system can obtain device specific initialization information from the other expansion bus devices which individually include a non-volatile storage device for storing such initialization information and wherein the computer system provides configuration information to both said improved expansion bus device and to said other expansion bus devices based on the initialization information according to a predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system can further store initialization information on the improved expansion bus device and provide the initialization information to the improved expansion bus device prior to utilizing said predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system includes non-volatile memory for storing system BIOS information and wherein said initialization information is stored in said non-volatile memory, said improved expansion bus device comprising:
An improved expansion bus device for use with a computer system having both said improved expansion bus device and other expansion bus devices, wherein the computer system can obtain device specific initialization information from the other expansion bus devices which individually include a non-volatile storage device for storing such initialization information and wherein the computer system provides configuration information to both said improved expansion bus device and to said other expansion bus devices based on the initialization information according to a predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence, and wherein the computer system can further store appropriate configuration information on the improved expansion bus device and provide the configuration information to the improved expansion bus device without utilizing said predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence, said improved expansion bus device having first and second configuration modes, wherein a non-volatile storage device for storing said initialization information is connected to said improved expansion bus device for first configuration mode operation, said improved expansion bus device comprising:
An improved expansion bus device for use with a computer system having both said improved expansion bus device and other expansion bus devices, wherein the computer system can obtain device specific initialization information from the other expansion bus devices which individually include a non-volatile storage device for storing such initialization information and wherein the computer system provides configuration information to both said improved expansion bus device and to said other expansion bus devices based on the initialization information according to a predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence, and wherein the computer system can further store appropriate configuration information on the improved expansion bus device and provide the configuration information to the improved expansion bus device without utilizing said predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system includes non-volatile memory for storing system BIOS information and wherein said initialization information is stored in said non-volatile memory, said improved expansion bus device having first and second configuration modes, wherein a non-volatile storage device for storing said initialization information is connected to said improved expansion bus device for first configuration mode operation, said improved expansion bus device comprising:
An improved expansion bus device for use with a computer system having both said improved expansion bus device and other expansion bus device, wherein the computer system can obtain device specific initialization information from the other expansion bus devices which individually include a non-volatile storage device for storing such initialization information and wherein the computer system provides configuration information to both said improved expansion bus device and to said other expansion bus devices based on the initialization information according to a predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system can further store initialization information on the improved expansion bus device and provide the initialization information to the improved expansion bus device prior to utilizing said predetermined automatic expansion configuration sequence and wherein the computer system includes non-volatile memory for storing system BIOS information and wherein said initialization information is stored in said non-volatile memory, said improved expansion bus device comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.