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US 6,275,879 B1Granted
ATA compatible adapter having a shadow register configured to intercept device select information and an automatic interrupt polling for overlapped ATA commands
OwnerTony Goodfellowinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method without the Host systems intervention to automatically select Devices on an ATA Cable and determine if they require to be serviced. Upon detection to the indicate to the Host that service is required. This method greatly reduces the Host system's processor overhead associated with Polling the Devices for status.
Claims6
A data communication system comprising:
- a host computer;
- at least one data storage device, configured to communicate with the host computer in accordance with an ATA protocol, the data storage device including a register configured to hold device selection information received from the host computer;
- an ATA compatible cable coupled to the at least one data storage device, the cable including a plurality of address lines;
- an ATA compatible adapter circuit coupled to the cable, and between the cable and the host computer, the adapter circuit including a shadow register, configured to intercept device select information sent by the host computer, the adapter evaluating the contents of the shadow register and forwarding the contents to a selected data storage device.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.