Abstract: A method for communicating active messages among nodes of a parallel processing computer system is disclosed. The active messages are defined by .mu.threads, and the method comprises the steps of: (a) generating a .mu.thread comprising an instruction pointer, frame pointer, and Local Parameters pointer from a first node to a second node; and (b) performing a procedure on a data structure in accordance with the .mu.thread. The instruction pointer points to an application specific procedure in system memory, and the frame pointer points to an application specific data structure in system memory. The Local Parameters pointer points to one or more words of additional data or parameters stored in memory mapped device registers or system memory.

Abstract: A method and system for aggregating objects within a computer system are provided. In a preferred embodiment, the method aggregates an enclosed object within an enclosing object. The enclosed object has an object management interface and an external interface, while the enclosing object has a controlling object management interface. The controlling object management interface and the external interface of the enclosed object have query function members for receiving an identifier of an interface and for returning a reference to the identified interface. A preferred embodiment creates an instance of an enclosing object and an object to be enclosed. In static aggregation, the controlling object management interface of the enclosing object knows in advance how to return an identifier to the external interface of the enclosed object. In dynamic aggregation, an object to be enclosed is added to the enclosing object after the enclosing object is instantiated.

Abstract: A device driver interface for achieving portability of device drivers for operating with full source level compatibility across multiple instruction set architectures and platforms. The device driver interface makes transparent to the driver the actual data access mechanisms of the host computers on which the driver is compiled.

Abstract: In a multi-version database, copies of prior committed versions (snapshots) are kept for access by the read-only transactions. The read-write transactions are selectively aborted to enforce an order of commitment of read-write transactions that is the same as an order of conflicts among the read-write transactions. In a preferred embodiment, the read-write transactions are serialized by maintaining and referencing a graph of conflicts among read-write transactions, and the read-only transactions are serialized by a timestamp mechanism for selection of the snapshots to be read. Each time that a read-write transaction is committed, the read-write transaction is assigned a unique timestamp that is used to timestamp all resources committed by the read-write transaction. Upon starting, each read-only transaction is also assigned a timestamp. Each read-only transaction reads only the latest committed versions of all resources, that are timestamped earlier than the timestamp of the read-only transaction.

Abstract: A Target MCU is restored to a Target State. A Host Trace of Debug Commands is preserved as the Target MCU is driven from a known first state to the Target State by executing a series of Debug Commands. The Target MCU is then reinitialized to the known first state. The Debug Commands are read from the Host Trace and sent to a Modular Development System (MDS) for execution by the Target MCU until the Target MCU is again is driven to the Target State.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating more helpful error messages during compilation of a software program. The software program contains a macro definition and an invocation of the macro. The macro is expanded during the compilation process. The invention generates several tables that save the history of the macro expansion. If an error occurs during compilation of the macro, the invention prints an error message, using the saved history information, that specifically identifies the location of the error in the source program of the macro and the history of the macro expansion. The invention can print multi-line macro histories for nested macro calls.

Abstract: A computer system comprising one or more information source modules and information display modules interconnected by a communications link. The information source module transmits, and the information display module receives, original information items using a peer-to-peer message transmission protocol. Thereafter, the information source module transmits update information items to the information display modules at one time using a multi-cast information transmission mechanism. In the multi-cast information transmission mechanism, an information display module determines when it has missed an update information message, waits a selected backoff delay time, and transmits a retransmission request for update information messages whose retransmission has not been requested by other information display modules during the backoff delay period.

Abstract: A fail-safe flash for an EPROM that is arranged into separately erasable sectors proceeds in a stepwise procedure. The EPROM is divided into at least three regions including a boot block region, a file region and a directory region. The boot block region stores at least two independently erasable boot blocks, only one of which is designated as a current boot block, which performs scanning of the directory region so as to determine a current directory in the directory region. The file region stores all executables, including executables designated as critical and non-critical. The directory region stores multiple directories, only one of which is a current directory, which designates which is the current boot block, which of the files stored in the file region are available for loading for execution, as well as which of the files are critical and which are non-critical. In the first step to flash the EPROM, the unused region of the boot block is updated with the new boot block.

Abstract: A computer control device including a TV game machine (for example: SEGA 16 Bit vedio game Mega Drive/Genesis), and a computer control main unit connected to the card slot on the TV game machine, wherein the computer control main unit has a first ASIC, a second ASIC and a plurality of interface circuits respectively connected to peripheral equipment (such as MODEM, CD-ROM, printer, etc.), SRAM, DRAM and ROM to use the signal from the card slot on the TV game machine and to decode the address using the first ASIC, permitting the BIOS program in the ROM to be loaded onto a free address space in the TV game machine and permitting the internal program of the TV game machine to jump to the address space to execute the BIOS program.

Abstract: A system for the in-line expansion of a portion of the program body otherwise rejected as too expensive for full in-line expansion during intermediate code optimization by a compiler. The partial in-lining system first attempts the full in-line expansion of a procedure call by replacing it with the procedure body in the usual manner. If the procedure body is rejected for exceeding an in-lining threshold, a control flow graph for the procedure body is generated and examined for "emittable" subgraphs, each of which is replaced by a new procedure call to a new procedure body containing the emitted (expensive) subgraph. Following one or more subgraph emissions to eliminate the expensive portions of the original procedure body, the "reduced" procedure body is again passed to the in-line expansion process.

Abstract: An apparatus and method of replacing the Master Boot Record with an installation code which retains compatibility with any disk partitioning or formatting utility that uses the system's BIOS to access the disk is disclosed. The Master Boot Record which is generally located on cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1 on a disk drive is replaced with a new BIOS loader and BIOS extension code. The BIOS loader determines the location in memory to load the new BIOS and updates the interrupt table. Upon completion of initialization, the new BIOS returns control to the BIOS Boot loader which requests the BIOS to load sector 1, head 0, track 0 to memory and then transfers control to it. The newly loaded BIOS extension redirects the request for this particular sector from 0/0/1 to the highest commonly available sector for cylinder 0 and track 0. Thereafter, all utilities which require access to the Master Boot Record will be transparently re-directed.

Abstract: A device driver in a computer system is dynamically loaded from a storage device to the computer system memory during run time to reduce the amount of memory required to store the device driver. During an initialization period, an initial copy of the device driver is loaded into the computer system memory from the storage device. After the initialization period, the device driver specifies, to the operating system, a minimum resident subset of the device driver of the initial copy which is to be retained in the computer system memory, thereby reducing the amount of computer system memory required to store the device driver. During run time of the device driver, a subsequent copy of the device driver is loaded from the storage device into the computer system memory. The computer system executes the device driver by using both the minimum resident subset of the device driver of the initial copy and a dynamically loaded subset of the device driver of the subsequent copy.

Abstract: A tracing technique is disclosed for an application program that is only permitted to access virtual storage, not physical storage, via a Protect Mode Addressing scheme. The application program contains an initialization statement that initializes a trace address T1 to be equal to a virtual address V1 contained in a data area under the control of the application program. A statement in the application program then requests a pinned virtual address V2 that maps to a predetermined physical address P from a device driver. If the device driver exists, the trace address T1=virtual address V2. A memory mapper maps address V2 to physical address P and writes the information to physical address P. A conventional logic analyzer monitors the bus for any writes to physical address P and captures the contents of the bus upon the detection of this condition.

Abstract: This invention concerns an interactive interface description tool that uses an interpreted language in which both the data and the programs have a similar representation, This tool also has an interpreter that is embedded with the interface description program, This interpreter consists of a mixture of "C" language and interpreted language instructions and uses a library ("X/MOTIF") of interactive command objects ("widget") and a library of graphical objects ("GO").

Abstract: Methods and related apparatus, for use in programming language systems, are set forth which support compile-time type checking for overloaded functions in an environment supporting subtypes with multiple inheritance. At both compile and runtime, the invention considers the type of all actual arguments of a function to select a proper function instance to execute. Furthermore, the methods contemplated by the invention identify at compile time the set of function instances which might be invoked due to subtype substitutions for the actual arguments. Since type errors on function invocations or variable assignments are usually indicative of a programming error, program reliability can be improved and faults that would otherwise result in runtime errors can be corrected through the use of the invention prior to program deployment.

Abstract: A method for enabling a user to designate device order and boot-device preference in a computer system in which the devices are controlled by mass storage controllers is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment, a customization program of the present invention gathers user preference order for any controllers present in a computer system, which information is stored in a nonvolatile storage element in the computer system. During bootup of the computer, the system's ROM BIOS retrieves the stored preference information and initializes the system's mass storage controllers in the user-specified order. This initialization ordering controls which set of drives is configured first, and therefore, which drive is given boot priority and the drive ordering as seen by the operating system.

Abstract: A computer application stored on a storage medium (e.g., a portable storage medium such as a compact disk) is automatically launched. Initialization information expressed in accordance with a predefined syntax is stored on the storage medium. Also stored in the computer is "launching" information sufficient, together with the initialization information, to enable the computer to launch the application. The application is automatically launched, without user intervention, by reading the initialization information and using it in connection with the launching information stored in the computer.

Abstract: RFO is a method for preprocessors of compilers of high-level programming languages which have built-in recursive function support. Given the source code, RFO identifies the recursive function and uses a formula to determine the maximum size of the results table which is used to store the intermediate results. When the table is filled, it wraps around, discards the old values, and replaces them with the new ones. An index is used to indicate the position of the latest entries, which are used for the backward search of the table This method results in efficient memory usage as well as shorter time of calculations compared with the standard mechanism provided by the compilers. RFO is independent of the computing machine power or its supporting compiler. This method is advantageous for cases requiring huge processing resources.

Abstract: Method and apparatus are disclosed for booting a computer from a removable media disk drive. The method and apparatus are suited to an environment in which the removable media disk drive is configured as the first fixed disk drive in the computer. The removable media drive responds to testing during the power-up as if it contains media, whether or not media is present. Thus, the removable media drive is recognized by the BIOS. Additionally, a substitute master boot record is provided to the computer from a Read-Only Memory device contained on the removable media drive in response to a request for the master boot record of the media. Control of the boot sequence is thereby gained. The substitute master boot record loads a boot program that allows booting from any media or physical disk drive independent of the CMOS configuration.

Abstract: A program translator has the following units:An option direction unit for directing a code generation unit to generate or not to generate an amendment instruction to compensate an overflow in an arithmetic operation.A code generation unit for generating an amendment instruction to compensate an overflow by discriminating the type of a data variable to be an operand for an arithmetic operation of a machine instruction when effective width of the data variable designated by an operand is smaller than the width of a register to store the data variable and when an overflow may be caused.