Abstract: Software rejuvenation techniques which improve reliability of a software system by stopping execution of the system and restarting the execution with "clean" state. The rejuvenation techniques are generally available to applications executing in a computer system. The techniques are implemented using a daemon process which observes applications registered with it and restarts them if they crash or hang and a process like the cron process of the UNIX operating system. The daemon process responds to a rejuvenation specification which indicates that an application which is registerd with it be rejuvenated by making a script for the cron process which specifies that the application's process be killed. When the cron process executes the script and kills the application, the daemon process observes that the application is dead and restarts it. In restarting the application, the daemon process may use state previously saved by the application for that purpose.

Abstract: A multiline inquiry-response system is realized by employing a minicomputer system. Predetermined signals are digitally encoded and stored in a disk memory. In response to requests from one or more lines, the computer central processor determines which digital words are required from the disk. The digital words are read from the disk memory to a plurality of registers in one or more of a plurality of dedicated buffer storage stages in a core memory. Each buffer stage is assigned to a designated output line. A direct memory access output multiplexer (DMAMUX) is employed to read the digital words from the registers in the loaded dedicated buffer storage stages to corresponding output lines without substantial processor control. To this end, the multiplexer monitors address signals transmitted in the computer system to detect which ones of the buffer storage stages include registers that have been loaded with digital words from the disk memory.