Importance

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Abstract

A desktop communications network connects numerous peripheral devices to a host computer via a single host interface. The host interface and each peripheral device's interface has its own CPU, with software for assigning each peripheral device a unique address. The bus interface associated with each peripheral device typically stores a unique identifier string that is used by the host computer to identify each peripheral device connected to the network. Alternately, the host can distinguish identical peripheral devices by the order in which they are first used. As a result, several peripheral devices of the same type can be connected to the network, each being assigned a distinct network address. Peripherals can be connected and disconnected to the desktop bus while the system is running. The software in the host and peripheral bus interfaces automatically reconfigure the assigned bus addresses. Peripherals with sub-devices are accommodated with a communications protocol that allows up to four sub-devices to be connected to each bus interface. Each peripheral device's bus interface contains a set of capabilities information that is retrieved by the host's interface and is used to determine how the host computer communicates with each peripheral device. For instance, the capabilities information may be used to select a device driver program for use with each peripheral device. In the case of keyboards, the capabilities information may contain a translation table which specifies how the data generated by each keystroke should be interpreted.

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