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Abstract

A microcomputer development system in which two jobs, such as a source program and an assembler program, can be run and monitored simultaneously. A CRT screen (10) is split so as to display information from both processor A (16) and processor B (18). A keyboard (12) is provided with a switch that toggles one of the processors so that the keyboard is assigned to that one processor to the exclusion of the other processor. In this case, the processor to which the keyboard is attached is designated the foreground processor, and its output is displayed highlighted on the CRT. The other processor is designated the background processor, and its information is displayed in reverse video to distinguish it from the foreground processor. At power-on reset time, processor A is designated the foreground processor and is assigned the keyboard. A printer (24) is always assigned to processor A. A disk controller (20) is shared by processor A and processor B, regardless of which processor is assigned to the keyboard. Information (flags) are passed back and forth between each processor and a CRT/keyboard controller (14) in order to provide information to control access to files on the floppy disk (22).

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First Claim