Abstract: In pause time based flow control systems having station-level granularity, a station or switch may detect congestion or incipient congestion and send a flow control frame to an upstream station, commanding that upstream station to temporarily stop (pause) sending data for a period of time specified in the flow control frame. The traffic pause gives the downstream station time to empty its buffers of at least some of the excess traffic it has been receiving. Since each downstream station operates independently in generating flow control frames, it is possible for the same upstream station to receive multiple, overlapping pause commands. If an upstream station which is already paused receives subsequent flow control frames from the same downstream station that triggered the pause, the upstream station's pause timer is rewritten using the pause times in the successive flow control frames.

Abstract: A musical hoop toy may be provided with a hoop structure, a sensing mechanism coupled to the hoop structure and being disposed on an interior side of the hoop structure such that, when the hoop structure is spun around a person's waist, the sensing mechanism will be periodically activated by a portion of the person's waist, an audio speaker coupled to the hoop structure, and a controller operatively coupled to the sensing mechanism and the audio speaker. The controller may include a processor, a memory, and a computer program stored in the memory. The computer program may have a computer program portion that causes a music sequence to be generated and a computer program portion that causes an audio sound effect to be generated in response to each activation of the sensing mechanism.

Abstract: An improved method of adding food-additive ingredients to a food product, particularly a reduced fat fried snack product, and an ingredient suspension containing a flowable edible, preferably a nondigestible fat, and food-additive ingredients. The method consists of suspending the encapsulated or powdered ingredients in the flowable edible fat, and applying the suspension in a controlled amount to the surface of a food product. The preferred food product is a fabricated reduced fat or fat-free potato chip which is a fried snack made by frying a dough in a nondigestible fat to a moisture content of less than 5%. The ingredient suspension is applied to the surface of the fried snack soon after emerging from the fryer. The food product has a light, crispy, improved crunchy texture, improved flavor and a fat content of from about 20% to about 38% nondigestible fat, and is fortified with food-additive ingredients.

Abstract: A method for transferring data between non-contiguous buffers in a memory and an I/O device via a system I/O bus uses a descriptor queue stored in memory. Each descriptor points to a buffer and includes the length of the buffer. The I/O device is provided with the base address of the queue, the length of the queue and a current address which at initialization is the same as the base address. When data is to be transferred a device driver located in the processor sends the number of available descriptors (DescrEnq) to the I/O device which accesses the descriptors individually or in burst mode to gain access to the data buffers identified by the descriptors.

Abstract: A method for transferring data between non-contiguous buffers in a memory and an I/O device via a system I/O bus uses a descriptor queue stored in memory. Each descriptor points to a buffer and includes the length of the buffer. The I/O device is provided with the base address of the queue, the length of the queue and a current address which at initialization is the same as the base address. When data is to be transferred a device driver located in the processor sends the number of available descriptors (DescrEnq) to the I/O device which accesses the descriptors individually or in burst mode to gain access to the data buffers identified by the descriptors.

Abstract: A method for transferring data between non-contiguous buffers in a memory and an I/O device via a system I/O bus uses a descriptor queue stored in memory. Each descriptor points to a buffer and includes the length of the buffer. The I/O device is provided with the base address of the queue, the length of the queue and a current address which at initialization is the same as the base address. When data is to be transferred a device driver located in the processor sends the number of available descriptors (DescrEnq) to the I/O device which accesses the descriptors individually or in burst mode to gain access to the data buffers identified by the descriptors.

Abstract: A LAN adapter is implemented in the communication system to selectively exclude four bytes of the CRC value appended to an end of a frame's information field through the use of a configuration bit in a register. By programming this configuration bit to have a specific logic value, the four-bytes of the CRC value may be selectively copied, together with the data in the frame, into a destination computer system's main memory. Additionally, regardless of the setting of this configuration bit, the four-bytes of the CRC value will always be used to check the integrity of the data in the frame. Stated another way, the configuration bit will only affect whether the four-bytes of the CRC value will be transferred as part of the frame after the CRC check operation has been performed.

Abstract: A method for transferring data between non-contiguous buffers in a memory and an I/O device via a system I/O bus uses a descriptor queue stored in memory. Each descriptor points to a buffer and includes the length of the buffer. The I/O device is provided with the base address of the queue, the length of the queue and a current address which at initialization is the same as the base address. When data is to be transferred a device driver located in the processor sends the number of available descriptors (DescrEnq) to the I/O device which accesses the descriptors individually or in burst mode to gain access to the data buffers identified by the descriptors.

Abstract: A LAN adapter for transferring data frames from a LAN to memory buffers in a processor in which the LAN driver follows either the ODI or the NDIS specification. The adapter accumulates the frame length and compares this to the storage capacity of the buffer. If the frame length does not exceed the buffer capacity and the LAN driver implements the ODI specification, the adapter will indicate good status to the driver. If the frame length exceeds the buffer capacity the adapter will either send bad status to the ODI driver or reuse the buffer and send no status. If the driver follows NDIS, status is sent at the end of the frame.

Abstract: A method for transferring data between non-contiguous buffers in a memory and an I/O device via a system I/O bus uses a descriptor queue stored in memory. Each descriptor points to a buffer and includes the length of the buffer. The I/O device is provided with the base address of the queue, the length of the queue and a current address which at initialization is the same as the base address. When data is to be transferred a device driver located in the processor sends the number of available descriptors (DescrEnq) to the I/O device which accesses the descriptors individually or in burst mode to gain access to the data buffers identified by the descriptors.

Abstract: An interrupt mechanism associated with a peripheral devise is connected to a processor by an interrupt driven I/O bus. The mechanism includes an n input System Interrupt Status Register (SISR) which collects up to n different interrupts from the device during a predetermined time period. Gate and timing circuits under control of signals provided by the processor regulate the frequency of the interrupts thus reducing the number of interrupt operations required to service the device.

Abstract: A two-way ratchet mechanism operated by a plunger that moves a pawl housing in one of two directions. The ratchet mechanisms are preferably used in a children's game to simultaneously gather game pieces in receptacles.

Abstract: An electronic soap bubble sensing and responsive device which is activated upon making contact between a soap bubble and an electronic sensor. The device consists of two electrodes mounted on a support frame and electrically coupled to internal electrical signal generation circuitry. The soap bubble sensor includes electrodes which are positioned so as to contact the soap bubble conjointly. Soap bubble fluid being conductive allows such contact to complete a trigger circuit, which contact also bursts the bubble, thereby breaking the circuit. The electrodes have a geometric configuration so as to maximum the conjoint contact with spherical bubbles, and the electrodes are supported on a frame so as to minimize wetting of the frame and triggering inadvertent activation. The completed electrical circuit can activate any sensory output as a result of the triggering, including sounds, lights or motion.