Abstract: A method for utilizing a three-dimensional (3-D) mouse in a graphic-user-interface based operating system, such as the WINDOWS operating systems from Microsoft Corporation, is provided. This method allows the 3-D mouse to emulate the functions of the IntelliMouse from Microsoft Corporation, including control of the scroll bars of the active window and special functions such as the auto-scrolling operation and the fast-scrolling operation. Provided that the active window is able to read IntelliMouse-compliant windows commands, the 3-D mouse can also be used to carry out the standard IntelliMouse functions, such as scrolling the scroll bars and resizing the active window.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for converting images to an arbitrary palette in a computer. A map table is created from the palette, wherein index entries referencing color values in the palette are stored at nodes in the table having coordinates derived from the referenced color values. For each pixel of an input datastream, the coordinates of the node in the map table representing a color value closest to the color value of the pixel are calculated from the color value for the pixel. An output datastream is created using the color value in the palette referenced by the index entry stored in the node.

Abstract: A computer method for utilizing a Virtual Tesseract, having all the features, and exercising all the potential for multiple movements of objects, conditions, arrays, interphasing and intra-relating on an integer base by simple computer register shifts.

Abstract: A method for dynamic caching of data in a disk based operating system. Upon the opening of a file, an access log is created. The access log is updated while accessing the data from the file. Range of access and access time are determined from the access log, and based on the range of access and access time, it is determined whether access of the file was sequential and within a predetermined access time. Based on this determination, a predetermined amount of data from the file is stored in a cache memory when access was sequential and also within the predetermined access time.

Abstract: A data processing system comprises a number of processing nodes, each having a processor and a local store. The workload of the system is represented by packets, including function packets specifying a function and pointers to one or more argument packets to which the function is to be applied. When a node processes a function packet, it checks whether all its argument packets are resident in the local store. If not, copies of the argument packets are fetched from the remote nodes in which they reside. These argument packets are referenced by special indirection packets, which contain the local and global address of the argument packet, and a reference count for garbage collection purposes.