Abstract: An enhanced semaphore architecture, referred to herein as a "fullphore", combines the "P" and "V" operations of a semaphore into a single "S" operation capable of handling both consumer processes and producer processes. A fullphore has a count, a limit, a queue for waiting processes, a wait permitted flag, and a operation flag. The operation flag determines whether the count is incremented or decremented by one. The architecture of the fullphore "S" operation is s(F,OP, WAIT.sub.-- PERMITTED), where F is the fullphore to be operated on, OP is +1 for a producer process and -1 for a consumer process, and WAIT.sub.-- PERMITTED is YES if the process will wait if necessary and NO if it will not.