Abstract: A data processing system having an architecture that will allow high-speed direct device-to-device data transfers without the necessity of first detouring the data through a computer memory. The system consists of a host computer and a remote signal processing subsystem connected thereto. A Direct Device Access Bus and a plurality of data processing devices are provided. A controller associated with a Signal Processing Subsystem supervisor, selectively interconnects desired ones of a set of data processing devices via the Direct Device Access Bus to provide direct communication between the selected devices within a set. Several sets of devices can be serviced concurrently by the technique of dynamic time slot allocation.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for improving the signal-to-noise ratio of low level seismic signals resulting from weak acoustic sources. The method has application to the summation of signals from swept-frequency sources. A reference model of the level of a valid seismic signal is built for each of a number of time windows during a seismic-data recording cycle. The model is selected by obtaining the average of the absolute magnitudes for each time window from a number of sweeps to form a set of averages. The median of each set is selected and is padded by a suitable coefficient to provide the reference model for each time window. Subsequently, a normal recording is made. Each data sample amplitude of the recording is compared with the reference model corresponding to the time window that includes the data sample. If the amplitude level of the data sample exceeds the reference model level, that sample is suppressed prior to summing.