Abstract:
A method for fast activating a computer function options by loading program image files is provided, including a data storage pre-installed with at least a program image file. When the user operates an option button, the computer loads and executes the program image file associated with the option button after the basic booting process of the operating system. This activates the multimedia device corresponding to the pressed option button. In the preferred embodiment, the data storage also stores a program image file index in addition to the program image files. The program file index stores the starting addresses and file size of all the program image files.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention relates to a method for booting a computer system and, more particularly, to a method for express execution of computer function options by loading an image file of a program. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   Because of the rapid development of computer technology, the multimedia playing system made with the integration of a computer system and an audiovisual player is gaining popularity and is widely used on many occasions, including offices and households. Similarly, computers integrated with intelligent appliances (IA) are also widely available in the product market. 
   Conventional multimedia playing system is basically interfacing a computer system with an audiovisual player. Thus, the user usually needs to boot the computer system up in order to activate and operate the audiovisual player. In other words, the user must wait until the computer system completes the BIOS program initialization, POST program, peripheral detection and driving, OS activation, system state setting, and so on, before the user can execute the audiovisual program to play the audiovisual data. It is inconvenient for the user as there is no shortcut to bypass the tedious booting process of the computer system. 
   The aforementioned drawback deters the computer-based multimedia system from behaving like a household appliance with a quick activation/booting process. If the computer-based multimedia system allows the user to switch among various function options like a household appliance, the ease of use will be a value-added feature to the computer. 
   As the computer provides many functions and yet most computer users usually use one or few computer functions at a time, such as music listening, TV watching, movie watching, it is a waste of time for the user to wait for the computer system to execute the initialization of all the hardware before they can use the intended function. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention is made to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of the conventional technology by providing a method for booting a computer-based multimedia system. The present invention allows a user to execute an application program by extracting an image file of that application program. Therefore, the conventional booting of the computer system, including BIOS, POST, and initialization can be omitted but the user is still allowed to choose among the function options by activating the image file of the program. 
   Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for fast activating a computer function options by loading program image files. The application programs of the computer are stored as the image files in the pre-determined memory address of the hard disk so that the user can quickly extract and execute the program image file when operating the function options. 
   A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for fast booting and execution of computer function options. The hard disk of the computer stores the program image files so that the execution of the program image files can be faster with the program image file index and the associated parameter files. 
   To achieve the aforementioned objects, the present invention provides a method comprising a data storage pre-installed with at least a program image file. When a user depresses and operates an option button, the computer loads and executes the program image file associated with the option button after the basic booting process of the operating system. This activates the multimedia device corresponding to the depressed option button. 
   In a preferred embodiment, the data storage also stores a program image file index in addition to the program image files. The program file index stores starting addresses and file sizes of all the program image files. Furthermore, the data storage can also include at least an associated parameter file. Each associated parameter file corresponds to a program image file for storing the parameters set by the user when the program image file is executed. 
   In comparison with the conventional methods, the present invention allows the computer to omit the conventional booting of a computer system, such as BIOS, POST, initialization, and so on, when detecting the user selecting a function option. Instead, the computer extracts the pre-installed program image file from the hard disk for execution in order to speed up the activation of the application program. In actual application, the present invention can stores image files of application programs for CD, digital music device, VCD, TV, and so on in the hard disk for fast extraction and activation. The present invention can further store associated parameters of each application program to improve the convenience of using the application programs. 
   These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art, from a reading of the following brief description of the drawings, the detailed description of the preferred embodiment, and the appended claims. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The present invention can be understood in more detail by reading the subsequent detailed description in conjunction with the examples and references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
       FIG. 1  shows a functional block diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention; 
       FIG. 2  shows a schematic view of a plurality of program image files in a program image file group of  FIG. 1 ; 
       FIG. 3  shows the correspondence between option buttons and multimedia device with program image file; 
       FIG. 4  shows a schematic view of the multimedia device of  FIG. 1 ; 
       FIG. 5  shows a flowchart of the first embodiment of  FIG. 1 ; 
       FIG. 6  shows a functional block diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention; and 
       FIG. 7  shows a flowchart of the second embodiment of  FIG. 6 . 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   With reference to the drawings and in particular to  FIG. 1 , which shows a functional block diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention, in the embodiment, a computer  100  comprises a central processing unit (CPU  11 ), a first bus bridge  12 , and a second bus bridge  13 . The CPU  11  is connected to the first bus bridge  12  through a system bus. The first bus bridge  12  is connected to a system memory  14 , and connected to a display through a display interface  150 . 
   The second bus bridge  13  is connected to a BIOS memory  16 . The BIOS memory  16  stores a BIOS program  161  and a power-on-self-test (POST) program  162 , required by the computer  100  during the booting process. 
   The second bus bridge  13  is connected to a hard disk interface  170  through a bus. The hard disk interface  170  is connected to a hard disk  17 . The hard disk  17  stores data in the present invention. The hard disk  17  is configured to include a first region  171  and a second region  172 . The first region  171  is installed with an operating system  171   a , such as Windows operating system. The first region  171  also stores various multimedia device drivers  171   b  and multimedia applications  171   c  working under the first operating system environment. 
   The second region  172  is installed with a second operating system  172   a , such as Linux-based operating system, Tiny Windows-based operating system, or embedded operating system. The second region  172  also stores a program image file group  18 . 
   Also referring to  FIG. 2 , the program image file group  18  comprises a plurality of program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , and AP 4 . For example, the program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , and AP 4  are the image files of the application programs for multimedia devices, such as, CD player, digital music device, VCD player, and TV signal receiver. 
   The program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , and AP 4  have starting address A 001 , A 002 , A 003 , A 004 , respectively. A program image file index  181  records the starting addresses and the file sizes of the program image files. 
   The program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  are the image files of the application programs for the multimedia devices, such as CD player, digital music device, VCD player and TV signal receiver. The program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  are pre-installed in the second region  172  of the hard disk  17 . 
   In addition, each program image file AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  is associated with an associated parameter file AP 11 , AP 21 , AP 31 , AP 41  for storing the parameter settings set by the user when using the application program, such as volume, sound quality, channel, and so on. 
   The second bus bridge  13  of the computer  100  is connected to an option button detection interface circuit  20  through a bus  130 , and the option button detection interface circuit  20  is connected to an option button set  2 . The option button set  2  includes a plurality of option buttons  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24 , which, when operated by the user, activate CD player, digital music device, VCD player and TV. At the user&#39;s operation of the option button  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24 , the corresponding program image file AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  is loaded from the hard disk  17  and executed to activate the playing function of CD player, digital music device, VCD player or TV signal receiver. 
     FIG. 3  shows the correspondence between the option button  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24  and the activated multimedia device  3   a ,  3   b ,  3   c ,  3   d  with executed program image file AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4 . 
   The option buttons  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24  can be buttons installed on the panel of the corresponding multimedia device or on the computer. Alternatively, the option buttons  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24  are specific keys on the keyboard of the computer. The specific keys can be decoded by a keyboard controller, and identified by the CPU. 
   The second bus bridge  13  of the computer  100  is connected to a multimedia player  3  through the bus  130 .  FIG. 4  shows a schematic view of multimedia player  3 . In the embodiment of the present invention, the multimedia player  3  comprises a CD player  3   a , a digital music device  3   b , a VCD player  3   c , and a TV signal receiver  3   d , all connected to the bus  130  through a CD interface circuit  30   a , a digital music interface circuit  30   b , a VCD interface circuit  30   c , and a TV interface circuit  30   d , respectively. 
   The second bus bridge  13  of the computer  100  is connected to an audio effect interface circuit  40  through the bus  130 . The audio effect interface circuit  40  is connected to an audio effect device  4 . The second bus bridge  13  of the computer  100  is also connected to a TV tuner  5  through the bus  130 . 
     FIG. 5  shows a flowchart of the embodiment of  FIG. 1 . The following description of the flowchart refers to  FIGS. 1-4 . 
   The computer  100  of the present invention can operate in either normal computer operation mode or multimedia express activation and playing mode. In step  101 , the computer  100  is turned on, and the computer  100  executes the basic booting process. That is, the computer  100  loads and executes the BIOS program  161  (step  102 ), the system initialization (step  103 ), the POST program  162  (step  104 ) from the BIOS memory  16 , and the device drivers (step  105 ). After the computer  100  finishes the basic booting process, the computer  100  loads and executes the first operating system  171   a  (step  106 ) from the first region  171  of the hard disk  17 , and enters the normal computer operation mode (step  107 ). At this point, the user can operate the computer  100  as a normal computer device. 
   When the user intends to perform multimedia playing function, the user only needs to depress any option button  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24  of the option button set  2  to activate the corresponding multimedia device, such as CD player, digital music device, VCD player or TV signal receiver. That is, when the computer  100  detects that any option button of the option button set  2  is depressed (step  108 ), the computer  100  selects the second operating system  172   a  in the second region  172  of the hard disk  17  as the booting operating system (step  109 ). Then, the second operating system  172   a  is loaded to the system memory  14  and executed (step  110 ). 
   When the computer  100  executes the second operating system  172   a , only the kernel of the second operating system  172   a  is executed, instead of the entire booting process as with using the first operating system  171   a , such as system initialization, POST, and so on. Then, the corresponding program image file AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  of the program image file group  18  in the second region  172  of the hard disk  17  is loaded to a random access disk region  141  of the system memory  14  for execution (step  111 ). At this point, the computer  100  enters the express activation and multimedia playing mode. In this way, the user does not wait for the conventional tedious booting process to enter the normal computer operation mode before activating multimedia playing function. 
   In this embodiment, the hard disk  17  is divided into the first region  171  and the second region  172  for installing with the first operating system  171   a  and the second operating system  172   a . Also, the program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  and the program image file index  181  are stored in the second region  172  of the hard disk  17 . In another embodiment, the hard disk  17  only includes a single region, and the program image files AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  and the program image file index  181  are all stored in that single region of the hard disk  17 . 
     FIG. 6  shows a functional block diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is similar to the first embodiment of  FIG. 1 , except that a hard disk  17  only includes a single region. The hard disk  17  is installed with an operating system  171   a , all device drivers  171   b , at least a multimedia application program  171   c , a program image file group  18 , and a program image file index  181 . 
     FIG. 7  shows the flowchart for the embodiment in  FIG. 6 . The flowchart is similar to the flowchart of  FIG. 5 , and the identical steps are designated with the same step number. In step  101 , the computer  100  is turned on, and the computer  100  executes the basic booting process. That is, the computer  100  loads and executes the BIOS program  161  (step  102 ), the system initialization (step  103 ), the POST program  162  (step  104 ) from the BIOS memory  16 , and the device drivers (step  105 ). After the computer  100  finishes the basic booting process, the computer  100  loads and executes the operating system  171   a  (step  106   a ) from the hard disk  17 , and enters the normal computer operation mode (step  107 ). At this point, the user can operate the computer  100  as a normal computer device. 
   When the user intends to perform multimedia playing function, the user only needs to depress any option button  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24  of the option button set  2  to activate the corresponding multimedia device, such as CD player, digital music device, VCD player or TV signal receiver. That is, when the computer  100  detects that any option button of the option button set  2  is depressed (step  108 ), the computer  100  selects the operating system  171   a  in the hard disk  17  as the booting operating system (step  109   a ). Then, the operating system  171   a  is loaded to the system memory  14  and executed (step  110   a ). 
   When the computer  100  executes the operating system  171   a , the system initialization, POST steps are omitted. Then, the corresponding program image file AP 1 , AP 2 , AP 3 , AP 4  of the program image file group  18  in the hard disk  17  is loaded to the random access disk region  141  of the system memory  14  for execution (step  111 ). At this point, the computer  100  enters the express activation and multimedia playing mode. In this way, the user does not wait for the conventional tedious booting process to enter the normal computer operation mode before activating multimedia playing function. 
   While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangement included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.