Abstract: This invention provides a method and apparatus for accurately measuring the flying height of a magnetic head at high speed by using a white lamp and a color CCD camera. The invention entails substituting tentative refraction coefficients and extinction coefficients representative of colors in theoretical equations expressing the relationship between interference light intensity and flying height, thereby optimizing the parameters by non-linear regression. The flying height of a magnetic head is measured by using the coefficient thus determined. Also, this invention enables determination of flying height at very high speed through effecting the above optimization in consideration of constants associated with the shape of the head under consideration, and adapting the above theoretical equations.

Abstract: Described is a network addressing scheme in which a message sent from a source node to a destination node includes a path address which defines the path over which the message should travel to reach the destination node. At each node along the path between the source and destination, the path address is compared against a predetermined value, and on determining that the address and predetermined value are different, the node modifies the address before forwarding the message onto the next node. In a switch node having three or more ports, the identity of the output port is determined from the path address and a portion of the address is deleted before sending the message out on that output port. Also described is a method of configuring a network in which one or more initiator nodes are defined, the initiator nodes issuing query messages to an adjacent node which responds by sending the initiator details of the number of operational ports which are implemented in the adjacent node.

Abstract: Manipulation of distributed heterogeneous data in a data processing system having multiple diverse data sources is permitted by providing a global data directory which maps the location of data, specific data entity attributes and data source parameters. An attribute table is provided within the global data directory which sets forth desired attributes in a logical data model for each data entity within the data processing system. A domain table related to the attribute table is utilized to specify domain information for each data entity attribute. Route and cross-reference tables are provided and utilized to specify data source or database parameters and a cross-reference between logical names within the logical data model and the diverse data sources. Desired heterogeneous data is then accessed utilizing the route and cross-reference tables and converted utilizing any known technique into an output having the desired attributes set forth within the attribute table.

Abstract: An apparatus and method are provided for disabling the clocking of a processor in a battery operated computer during non-processing times. The clocking is disabled at the conclusion of a processing operation. The clocking can then be re-enabled using interrupts from any one of a plurality of sources, such as an I/O device or a direct memory access. Application programs and operating system programs running on the system can specify the stopping of the system clock and the central processor until a specified event which had been requested occurs, or until an optional time-out period has expired. In this situation, the event is defined as one that results in either a system interrupt from an I/O device or from a direct memory access operation. The stopping of the system clock is a two part operation wherein in the first part the stopping mechanism is first armed. If an interrupt is received subsequent to arming, then it will be processed and the arming mechanism will be reset.

Abstract: In a signal processing environment, voice messages are stored into and read out of a buffer in real time. Since voice messages are being stored and read from the buffer, different sizes and rates of information are being stored therein. Small packets of digitized voice are input to the buffer at a very high rate, while larger packets of data are output from the buffer at a lower rate and can be stored into permanent memory. The buffering of this digitized voice data occurs in real time using a ringed buffer. The transfer of data into and out of the buffer is under the control of a software application running on a host processing system. The producer of the digitized voice data is a signal processing system which converts an input analog voice signal into a compressed digitized signal. The consumer of the buffered digitized voice data is a software application program which removes blocks of multiple data records from the buffer for program execution.