Abstract: A memory management system and method of managing a memory system are disclosed. The memory management system includes a plurality of physical storage media and a memory manager for generating virtual storage devices or "stores," with one or more first storage devices each having a corresponding first mapping plug-in, or device driver, associated with the plurality of physical storage media. Each first device driver scans its corresponding first storage device to determine its partitioning format and generates one or more second virtual storage devices from a partition map stored in the partitioning plug-in, or partition manager, associated with the corresponding first storage device, each second virtual storage device having one or more second partitioning formats, a second partition manager and second device driver. The first and second partition managers are independent of the first and second device drivers.

Abstract: A system and method for preventing damage to media files within a digital camera comprises a power manager for detecting power failures, an interrupt handler for responsively incrementing a counter device and a removable memory driver for performing memory access operations, evaluating the counter device to determine whether a power failure has occurred during the memory access operation and for repeating the memory access operation whenever a power failure has occurred during the memory access operation.

Abstract: An electronic system interconnect. The interconnect comprises a first node and a second node coupled to the first node. The interconnect is initially configured to include the first and second nodes. A third node is added to the interconnect after the interconnect is initially configured, and the first node responds to the addition of the third node by initiating a new connect handshake with the third node. The first node begins by transmitting a first signal to the third node. The first node signals that the third node has been added to the interconnect if the third node responds to the first signal by transmitting a second signal. The first node causes the interconnect to be reconfigured if the third node transmits a third signal in response to receiving the first signal.

Abstract: A locking scheme is provided to arbitrate thread access to file system objects. This locking scheme allows multiple threads simultaneous access to file system objects for certain concurrently compatible operations, while forbidding concurrently incompatible operations. Separate types of locks are provided for hierarchical relationships between objects and the contents (e.g., data) of the objects themselves.

Abstract: A network messaging protocol is used to send an arbitrary size packet over the network from a source machine to a destination machine. If the packet is accepted by the routers along the path of the potential network connection, then the destination machine will be able to echo the test message packet back to the source machine and an acceptable packet size is set equal to the test message packet size. If not, after a suitable time out, the source machine will send another test message with a different packet size than the initial arbitrary packet size and wait for echo and repeat the process until an acceptable packet size is discovered.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for interleaving display frame buffers for use by multi-panel display(s) is disclosed. The system provides a data addressing transformation apparatus for converting CPU addresses for pixel positions of the multiple panels of display screen(s) to corresponding memory addresses so as to enable multiple video frame buffers to be interleavably stored in and retrieved from a single video memory system.

Abstract: A mechanism is provided for avoiding deadlock in a computer system in which a split-transaction bus is bridged to a single-envelope bus. In one embodiment, transactions begun on said split-transaction bus are monitored. When a combination of transactions would, if a predetermined further transaction were to begin, result in deadlock, this condition is detected. The predetermined further transaction, if it is requested, is refused, thereby avoiding deadlock. In accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the bus bridge detects when a state of the split-transaction bus would, if a protocol of said split-transaction bus were adhered to, result in deadlock. The bus bridge then drives one or more signals on the split-transaction bus in disregard of the protocol of the split-transaction bus, thereby avoiding deadlock. In accordance with still a further embodiment of the invention, transactions accepted within the bus bridge are monitored.

Abstract: A software manager enables a computer user to administer software elements within a computer operating system. The software manager comprises a configuration database storing information including a prevailing state and a dependency listing for each of the software components within the system. The software manager also comprises a user interface which allows the computer user to view the stored information and permits the user to specify changes to the prevailing states. Finally, the software manager comprises a software manager server which communicates with the user interface and the configuration database, effects the user specified changes, and updates the stored information to reflect those changes. A user of the software manager can readily obtain an overall "picture" of a prevailing system configuration, use that picture to make intelligent decisions with respect to system modification, and thereby administer the operating system environment in a seamless, efficient, and robust manner.

Abstract: A network-oriented component system efficiently accesses information from a network resource located on a computer network by creating an encapsulated network entity that contains a reference to that resource. The encapsulated entity is preferably implemented as a network component stored on a computer remotely displaced from the referenced resource. In addition, the encapsulated entity may be manifested as a visual object on a graphical user interface of a computer screen. Such visual manifestation allows a user to easily manipulate the entity in order to display the contents of the resource on the screen or to electronically forward the entity over the network.

Abstract: A series of data stream commands are combined into a nil terminated linked list to form a data stream control procedure for a computer system. Thereafter, the data stream control procedure is assigned to a data stream within the computer system. A plurality of data items (e.g., packets) associated with the data stream are then managed by executing operations on the data items according to the data stream control procedure. The management operations may include compiling the data stream control procedure into direct memory access (DMA) commands and then executing the DMA commands by transferring the data items within a memory system associated with the computer system. The data stream commands in the data stream control procedure are compiled in a linear sequence. In one embodiment, the computer system may conform to the IEEE 1394 Serial Bus Standard.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for interleaving display frame buffers is disclosed. The system includes a processor providing CPU addresses for peripheral (access, a display system, a single memory system for storing multiple frame buffers, data buses for transferring image information and a video controller for processing the image information received and for converting CPU addresses into memory addresses for accessing the memory system. The multiple frame buffers stored in the memory system in accordance with the present invention provide either overlay images for a display or separate images for separate displays or both.

Abstract: A mechanism is provided for reordering bus transactions to increase bus utilization in a computer system in which a split-transaction bus is bridged to a single-envelope bus. In one embodiment, both masters and slaves are ordered, simplifying implementation. In another embodiment, the system is more loosely coupled with only masters being ordered. Greater bus utilization is thereby achieved. To avoid deadlock, transactions begun on said split-transaction bus are monitored. When a combination of transactions would, if a predetermined further transaction were to begin, result in deadlock, this condition is detected. In the more tightly coupled system, the predetermined further transaction, if it is requested, is refused, thereby avoiding deadlock. In the more loosely-coupled system, the flexibility afforded by unordered slaves is taken advantage of to, in the typical case, reorder the transactions and avoid deadlock without killing any transaction.

Abstract: The present invention provides an improved rendering system for walk-through applications. The method and system for a walk-through image rendering system in a data processing system provides a first image based on a geometry-based rendering approach in which a user's view position is changing; and also provides a second image based on an image-based representation of a scene in which the user's view position is not changing.

Abstract: One or more prerecorded sounds are used as a voice source in a speech synthesizer to provide unique synthetic speech sounds. Recording one or more sound samples and then utilizing a speech synthesizer with the capability to select among and between the sound samples as the voice source to the speech synthesizer provides a higher quality and greater variety of possible synthetic speech sounds. This is particularly true when the multiplicity of voice sources are predetermined to have certain desired sound qualities and spectral content such as may be desired to provide synthetic speech of inanimate objects and animals or atypical speech qualities to human synthetic speech.

Abstract: An improved apparatus and method for performing sample rate conversion of digital sample values is disclosed. The sample rate conversion utilizes a finite impulse response filter that substantially eliminates the introduction of phase errors that plague conventional approaches. The computations required to implement the finite impulse response filter are provided in a hardware implementation that is efficiently constructed and utilized so as to be practical to implement in hardware as well as being fast enough to process the incoming samples in essentially real time. The digital sample values being processed by the invention can, for example, be audio, video or graphics related digital sample values. The sample rate conversion is suitable for scaling the size of the images (graphical or video) along one or more axes, or for time compression or expansion of an audio streaming rate.

Abstract: Methods, apparati and computer program products display hierarchically arranged objects to simulate the display of objects in three dimensions. Objects in the same level of the hierarchy are displayed in a size different from objects on other levels of the hierarchy to simulate the objects on each level being on a different plane, one behind another. Each object's child objects are displayed clustered around the projection of the object into the plane of the child objects, to graphically display the parent-child relationship.

Abstract: The present invention is related to systems and methods for compressing image data while at the same time, improving both the compression ratio and the perceptibility of the decompressed image using a dynamic color matching scheme. Such features are achieved even when the image data is compressed without segregation into its scanned and non-scanned components. Color variant data is encoded using a dynamic color matching scheme to enhance the color fidelity of a decompressed image obtained from the encoded color variant data. As a result, improved perceptibility of decompressed images is achieved regardless of whether scanned images, non-scanned images or any combination thereof are collectively compressed. Such improved perceptibility is achieved regardless of whether the images are monochrome (having varying grey scale values) or color. In addition, improved perceptibility is realized in a manner which permits image data including scanned and/or unscanned images to be compressed in real-time.

Abstract: A technique for displaying information from related tables of a database in different display windows on a display screen associated with a computer system is disclosed. The different display windows are interlinked such that a selection of one or more entries in one of the display windows causes the other of the display windows to distinguishably and orderly display those entries that are related to the selection. A graphical user interface (GUI) in which a main screen is produced having the interlinked display windows is also disclosed.

Abstract: A system and method for simulating motion in an interactive computer application wherein images of a scene are used to render views of the scene from particular viewpoints. The method and system includes registering a first image and a second image using a transformation that overlays common features of both the first and the second image. After the two images are registered, at least one intermediate image is generated by applying a first interpolated transformation to the first image and a second interpolated transformation to the second image. The first image, the intermediate image, and the second image are then sequentially rendered to simulate motion through the scene.

Abstract: A system for typographic glyph construction includes a graphics system, a glyph server coupled to the graphics system, and an operating system coupled to the glyph server. An apparatus for typographic glyph construction of input text in a graphics system running on a computer system and output on an output device of the computer system includes a line layout core unit, a glyph cache unit coupled to the line layout core unit, an open font architecture services unit coupled to the glyph cache unit, at least one scaler unit coupled to the open font architecture unit, a font object management unit coupled to the at least one font scaler, and an attribute group support unit supporting a data structure for communication among the units of the apparatus.