Patent ID: 6393493
Filing Date: 2002-05-21
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A method for performing data transfers in a system comprising a computer system and a device coupled to the computer system through a serial bus, wherein the computer system includes device driver software and serial bus driver software, wherein the computer system also includes virtual buffer software, the method comprising;a) an application executing in the computer system making a call to the device driver software requesting data from the device, wherein the device driver software is designed to read the data one sample at a time from the device; b) the virtual buffer software receiving a call from the device driver software requesting data from the device; c) the virtual buffer software requesting data from the device in one or more packets after said intercepting; d) the computer system receiving the packets of data from the device; e) the virtual buffer software storing the data into a buffer portion of a computer memory in the computer system in response to receiving the packets of data; f) the virtual buffer software generating an interrupt to the device driver software indicating that an amount of data is stored in the buffer portion of the computer memory; g) a device driver software interrupt service routine executing to read a status register to determine a cause of the interrupt in response to the interrupt; h) the virtual buffer software intercepting the status register read operation and returning a status of the buffer portion of the computer memory which stores the data, wherein the status of the buffer portion of the computer memory reflects the data received from the device; i) the device driver software interrupt service routine reading the data a sample at a time from the buffer portion of the computer memory in response to the interrupt and in response to the status of the buffer portion of the computer memory reflecting the data received from the device.