Method of controlling the transfer of information across an interface between two buses

A method of controlling the transfer of information between a first bus and clients on a second bus through an interface, comprising:

• placing client messages to be transferred across the interface into a queue;
• reviewing a status register associated with the interface to determine whether the interface is currently allocated to a client;
• if the interface is not currently allocated to a client, then assuming control of the interface;
• writing the first message in the queue to a request buffer;
• writing a command to the interface to transfer the message in the request buffer to the first bus;
• determining whether a message result has arrived in response to the last transmitted message;
• transmitting an interrupt to the second bus by the interface;
• reading the status register and determining whether the interrupt indicates a response to a message or an event, if the interrupt is in response to a message, reading a response buffer or if the interrupt is in response to an event, placing an event query message into the message queue;
• determining the size of the response in the response buffer;
• verifying that the client associated with the message being process has allocated sufficient space to receive the response;
• and
• writing the contents of the response register to a memory location allocated by the client.