Patent ID: 7483630

Claim:
A method for transmitting DC coupled signals and system signals in a computational system comprising: providing at least one pair of hosts which communicate with each other bi-directionally wherein each host in the at least one pair of hosts has at least one bidirectional open drain wired-and signal associated with each host; converting the at least one bidirectional open drain wired-and signal from a first host in the pair into a unidirectional DC coupled transmit signal and a unidirectional DC coupled receive signal; combining and preparing the unidirectional DC coupled transmit signal with other unidirectional DC coupled signals and system signals to be transmitted from the first host in the pair for encoding; encoding the respective first set of multiple unidirectional DC coupled transmit signals into respective AC coupled signals; providing an optical link between at least one pair of hosts having at least one optical lane in each direction; transmitting and receiving the respective AC coupled signals over a respective one of the at least one optical lane; decoding the respective AC coupled signals into a second set of respective multiple unidirectional DC coupled receive signals; wherein one unidirectional DC coupled receive signal in the second set of respective multiple unidirectional DC coupled receive signals is received on a respective one of an open-drain wired-and unit associated with a second host in the at least one pair of hosts providing respective open-drain output signals; and recombining a second unidirectional DC coupled receive signal in the second set of respective multiple unidirectional DC coupled receive signals, and one of a respective open-drain output signal to provide for new respective bidirectional signals to implement a respective one of an open-drain wired-and function associated with one respective host in the at least one pair of hosts.