| Patent Number |
Title Of Patent |
Date Issued |
| 5577250 |
Programming model for a coprocessor on a computer system |
November 19, 1996 |
| A computer system having a processor and a coprocessor, a method and apparatus for developing and executing tasks on a coprocessor. A teamwork operating system for utilizing the coprocessor, e.g. a digital signal processor, resides in part on the processor and in part on the coproces |
| 5577135 |
Handwriting signal processing front-end for handwriting recognizers |
November 19, 1996 |
| A handwriting signal processing front-end method and apparatus for a handwriting training and recognition system which includes non-uniform segmentation and feature extraction in combination with multiple vector quantization. In a training phase, digitized handwriting samples are par |
| 5577044 |
Enhanced serial data bus protocol for audio data transmission and reception |
November 19, 1996 |
| A protocol for transferring audio data and control/status data between audio functional units. The protocol involves multiplexing the audio data and control/status data. The multiplexed data is then transferred between a first audio unit and a second audio unit on two wires, each cor |
| 5574964 |
Signal distribution system |
November 12, 1996 |
| A signal distribution system having a converter with input terminals for receiving signals of varying configurations and an output terminal for transmitting converted signals. The input signals received by the converter are each converted into a converted signal frequency component o |
| 5574922 |
Processor with sequences of processor instructions for locked memory updates |
November 12, 1996 |
| A system and method for executing sequences of instructions which can be used to access a memory location in a locked fashion. The first instruction specifies an address and sets a lock register which disables interrupts until it is cleared. The second instruction specifies an addres |
| 5574903 |
Method and apparatus for handling request regarding information stored in a file system |
November 12, 1996 |
| In a computer including at least one caller adapted to request access to a storage media, the storage media being organized according to one of at least one file system format, a system for handling requests for access to the storage media. The system includes interface modules for recei |
| 5574887 |
Apparatus and method for emulation routine pointer prefetch |
November 12, 1996 |
| An apparatus and method for emulation routine pointer prefetch are disclosed. The apparatus includes an emulated program counter (EPC), a prefetch state machine, a summing device, an opcode storage device, and a pointer storage device. The EPC, opcode storage device and pointer storage |
| 5574873 |
Decoding guest instruction to directly access emulation routines that emulate the guest instruct |
November 12, 1996 |
| A system for decoding guest instructions includes an emulation routine store in host processor addressable memory having a set of emulation programs beginning at corresponding emulation program addresses. A sequence of guest instructions is stored in the host processor addressable me |
| 5574404 |
Optical coupler galvanic isolation device, and modem incorporating it |
November 12, 1996 |
| A galvanic isolation device having a light-emitting diode and a photo-transistor. A control circuit, which is coupled to the light-emitting diode and which controls the light-emitting diode, is provided. A signal generator circuit, which is coupled to the photo-transistor, is also pr |
| 5572686 |
Bus arbitration scheme with priority switching and timer |
November 5, 1996 |
| A system and method for changing an arbitration priority of a bus master are described. A changing system condition can be detected and used to signal the arbiter to change the priority of one or more bus masters. Timers can be provided to delay the request of a changed priority and to |
| 5572582 |
Method and apparatus for establishing communication between two teleconferencing endpoints |
November 5, 1996 |
| An automatic method and apparatus for communicating information, such as teleconference data between teleconferencing systems. A first endpoint identifies communication capabilities to a second endpoint via a first message. The first endpoint notifies the second endpoint of the desire to |
| 5572095 |
Method and apparatus for driving deflection and high voltage stages in a video display |
November 5, 1996 |
| The present invention, generally speaking, provides an improved base drive arrangement for scan and/or EHT output stages in a television or video display monitor. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, by adding just a few components to an existing main base drive circuit, two p |
| 5570462 |
System and method for object placement and sizing in a dynamic display environment |
October 29, 1996 |
| A system for updating the location of elements in a computer display, upon a change in the size and/or configuration of the display, that relocates objects originally rendered on a display device which has been moved or resized in a location which preserves the original, visual appearanc |
| 5570296 |
System and method for synchronized presentation of video and audio signals |
October 29, 1996 |
| A system and method for synchronized presentation of audio and video signals initially stored on a computer. A single composite file containing synchronized information characterizing the signals is generated. The data in the file is supplied as a stream to the input of a demultiplexer. |
| 5570141 |
Molded frame for fixing optical elements in a liquid crystal shutter |
October 29, 1996 |
| A molded frame for fixing optical elements in a liquid crystal shutter including a registration portion configured similar to a 35 mm slide frame for precisely registering the elements relative to one another and a mounting portion configured to mate with the outer surface of a CRT and |
| 5570109 |
Schedule and to-do list for a pen-based computer system |
October 29, 1996 |
| A method and apparatus for controlling a schedule and a to-do list on a computer display. A computer implemented method of the present invention includes the steps of displaying a calendar controller on a computer display, selecting at least one date on the calendar controller, deter |
| 5568644 |
Method and apparatus using a tree structure for the dispatching of interrupts |
October 22, 1996 |
| Each device is represented by a node in a hierarchical tree, referred to herein as an interrupt source tree (IST). The root and intermediate nodes of the IST represent dispatching or determining points; this removes the need for the device drivers to contain dispatching code; the drivers |
| 5568603 |
Method and system for transparent mode switching between two different interfaces |
October 22, 1996 |
| A method and apparatus for transparently switching between viewing modes in a computer system is described. The method and apparatus of the present invention includes a bounding area and a smaller reference region within that bounding area. The bounding area is typically a computer displ |
| 5568107 |
Transmission line having impedance set by reference plane fenestration |
October 22, 1996 |
| An arrangement in which a transmission line on a multilayer printed circuit board has an impedance which is set by forming apertures or windows (fenestration) in a nearest conductive reference plane. |
| 5566337 |
Method and apparatus for distributing events in an operating system |
October 15, 1996 |
| In a computer including an operating system, an event producer for generating an event and detecting that an event has occurred in the computer and an event consumer which need to be informed when events occur in the computer, a system for distributing events including a store for st |
| 5566304 |
Method of dynamic selection between immediate and delayed read access acknowledgement |
October 15, 1996 |
| A method for determining whether a bus interface should immediately acknowledge a read request. In one embodiment, devices connected to a plurality of buses are assigned addresses from a first set of addresses or a second set of addresses depending upon whether the device will accept a |
| 5566295 |
Extensible simulation system and graphical programming method |
October 15, 1996 |
| An extensible simulation system and graphical programming method enable a simulation user to program the behaviors of objects in a simulation while requiring no knowledge of computer programming concepts or languages. The simulation user defines each object's behaviors by creating Graphi |
| 5566248 |
Method and apparatus for a recognition editor and routine interface for a computer system |
October 15, 1996 |
| A computer system including a CPU, a screen assembly coupled to the CPU, a pointer assembly coupled to the CPU, an application program running on the CPU, a recognizer routine running on the CPU, and a recognition editor and interface (REI) routine running on the CPU and providing an int |
| 5566064 |
High efficiency supply for electroluminescent panels |
October 15, 1996 |
| Apparatus for operating electroluminescent panels. An electroluminescent panel is driven by a voltage source feeding a modified bridge driven by a pulse width modulated signal. By using a pulse frequency above the range of human hearing and a modulating signal that is a sine wave of the |
| 5563996 |
Computer note pad including gesture based note division tools and method |
October 8, 1996 |
| A method for manipulating notes on a screen of a computer display characterized by: (a) generating an initial note area; (b) dividing the initial note area into a plurality of note areas in response to at least one division gesture implemented by a pointing device, where each division |
| 5561893 |
Method of forming a hinge structure |
October 8, 1996 |
| A personal computer includes a metallic main chassis section and a metallic subchassis hinged thereto. The subchassis includes a side wall and a floor forming a corner therebetween. The corner is formed by integral pieces of the subchassis extending between the side wall and floor, the p |
| 5561756 |
Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using texture map double indirection |
October 1, 1996 |
| A method and apparatus for rendering textured spheres and spherical environment maps. The method of the present invention provides for real time rotation of a textured sphere and panning of the view into a spherical environment map, along multiple axes without the need for special re |
| 5561752 |
Multipass graphics rendering method and apparatus with re-traverse flag |
October 1, 1996 |
| A graphics rendering system allows an application program to make immediate or retained mode calls to render a model, without needing to know how many passes the renderer requires to complete the scene. The application program invokes the rendering subsystem and the rendering subsystem |
| 5561670 |
Method and apparatus for operating a multicast system on an unreliable network |
October 1, 1996 |
| A multicast network system comprises a data network which provides a medium for data transfer. A media source having a control packet and media packets coupled to the data network broadcasts the control packet and the media packets to the data network and rebroadcasts the control packet |
| 5561459 |
Automatic profile generation for a self-calibrating color display |
October 1, 1996 |
| A method and system for formatting characteristic CRT information into a standardized format to provide a dynamic CRT characteristic profile to enhance presently used methods of recalibrating CRTs is disclosed. Present CRT parameters are measured and combined with previously acquired |
| 5561444 |
Method and apparatus for providing visual feedback during manipulation of text on a computer scr |
October 1, 1996 |
| A method and apparatus providing visual feedback to a computer user while dragging selected text is described. As its first step, the processing logic creates a text object from the selected text once the computer user has initiated a drag. Simultaneously, the selected text is visually |
| 5559967 |
Method and apparatus for a dynamic, multi-speed bus architecture in which an exchange of speed m |
September 24, 1996 |
| In a computer bus arrangement in which a plurality of nodes are interconnected by communication links, control signals are exchanged between the nodes concerning the transmission rate of a data message to be transmitted and the reception rate capability of the nodes. The data message |
| 5559942 |
Method and apparatus for providing a note for an application program |
September 24, 1996 |
| A method and apparatus for providing a note on an application program includes noticing a note anchor object associated with a data file displayed by an application program on a computer screen and displaying a note slip image over the displayed data and images of the application pro |
| 5559925 |
Determining the useability of input signals in a data recognition system |
September 24, 1996 |
| A system for generating a signal proportional to the useability of the output of a speech recognition system comprises a processor, an engine, and a histogram object. The histogram object comprises a first histogram constructed from the confidence scores of correctly recognized utterance |
| 5559683 |
Flyback switching power supply with bootstrapped gate drive |
September 24, 1996 |
| Method and apparatus for providing bootstrapped gate drive voltage in a flyback switching power supply. Switching transients and ringing caused by leakage inductance and capacitance in the flyback transformer are captured and used to provide a boosted gate drive voltage for the flyback s |
| 5557777 |
Method and apparatus for system recovery from power loss |
September 17, 1996 |
| A computer system for system recovery from power loss includes a central processing unit and an activation means for starting up the computer. The computer system also has a cold boot circuit, a system controller, volatile read/write memory, and non-volatile read/write memory. The co |
| 5557755 |
Method and system for improving bus utilization efficiency |
September 17, 1996 |
| In a bus system including a bus, a plurality of nodes including a primary node, and a bus access coordinator, bus utilization efficiency is improved by operating the coordinator at the same clock frequency as the primary node. The primary node is the node in the bus system which accesses |
| 5557738 |
Power system configuration and recovery from a power fault condition in a computer system having |
September 17, 1996 |
| A power system fault handling mechanism for portable electronic devices having multiple power supplies. A safety-net circuit is triggered when a power fault condition is detected. The safety-net circuit is a diode-based bridging circuit which couples all available power supplies to the p |
| 5557712 |
Color map tables smoothing in a color computer graphics system avoiding objectionable color shif |
September 17, 1996 |
| A method of smoothing a color lookup table minimizes inappropriate shifts away from gray, at the same time reducing the effect of measurement errors and enabling interpolation between the lookup table data points to be performed efficiently. More particularly, data in a preliminary looku |
| 5557578 |
Dynamic memory refresh controller and method |
September 17, 1996 |
| A refresh controller and method are provided which issue refresh requests to a memory as high and low priority requests based on the number of pending refresh requests to the memory. The refresh request is determined to be a high priority request when the number of pending refresh reques |
| 5557577 |
System and method for performing wake-up operations to a memory |
September 17, 1996 |
| A system and method are provided which ensure that the required number of refreshes are executed by the memory after powering on. A counter of a refresh processor is initialized to a reset value after completing a reset interval so that the required number of refreshes correspond to high |
| 5556107 |
Computer game apparatus for providing independent audio in multiple player game systems |
September 17, 1996 |
| The present invention has application to dedicated multimedia game systems and computer game programs executed by personal computers. A central processing unit (CPU) is coupled to a mass storage device, such as for example, a read-only memory game cartridge, CD-ROM, floppy disk or hard |
| 5555369 |
Method of creating packages for a pointer-based computer system |
September 10, 1996 |
| A development environment and method is provided in which a first computer system is used to develop an application for execution in a second computer system--such as a pen-based computer--having a graphical user interface. The first computer system also has a graphical user interface |
| 5555363 |
Resetting the case of text on a computer display |
September 10, 1996 |
| A method and apparatus for setting the case of text in a pen-aware computer system is described. In general, the case of one or more letters of a designated text object can be changed with a convenient and simple input gesture. The case resetting gesture takes the form of a substantially |
| 5555157 |
Enclosure for electronic apparatus having a cover catch member engageable with two different hou |
September 10, 1996 |
| An enclosure for an electrical apparatus includes a housing having top and bottom surfaces and a plurality of side surfaces, and an electrical apparatus, such as a pen-based computer, disposed within the housing such that the housing and the apparatus present a user interface region |
| 5555102 |
System and method for generating images with improved visual quality using local correlation, or |
September 10, 1996 |
| A system for producing a set of dither matrix signals having local correlation comprises a processor, an input device, a display device, a hard output device, an incremental threshold generator, a pattern generator, an optimizer, a dither matrix storage, and a pixel activator. The in |
| 5551017 |
Polycyclic timing and apparatus for pipelined computer operation |
August 27, 1996 |
| A polycyclic timing system and an apparatus for pipelined computer operation comprises a master state machine and a slave state machine. The master state marine produces a plurality of control signals in response to a clock signal. The master state machine comprises an oscillator, a |
| 5550967 |
Method and apparatus for generating and displaying visual cues on a graphic user interface |
August 27, 1996 |
| A user interface includes an object oriented graphic user interface having overlapping windows and provides an access window having topics, index and look for button functions for selection by a user. Through the use of the topics, index or look for functions, a help inquiry is defined. |
| 5550487 |
Apparatus and method for allowing a synamic logic gate to operate statically |
August 27, 1996 |
| A statically operated dynamic CMOS logic gate that includes an FET logic network for performing a predefined logic function with respect to its logic inputs, an output node, a precharge transistor, and in some embodiments an evaluate transistor. During operation, the precharge transi |
| 5548780 |
Method for semaphore communication between incompatible bus locking architectures |
August 20, 1996 |
| A semaphore method establishes exclusive access transactions between source and destination nodes in a multiple bus computer system, independent of the bus locking architectures of the component buses. An atomic transaction is selected for each bus protocol to mediate exclusive access |
