Patent ID: 7617330

Claim:
A system for controlling operation of a network device via a network bus independent of operations of a host computer comprising: a host computer; at least one network device; a network bus, wherein said at least one network device is in electrical communication with said network bus; and a bus controller disposed in electrical communication with both the network bus and said host computer for sending instructions to the at least one network device, wherein said bus controller comprises a memory device for storing a command schedule preloaded by the host computer comprising a series of instructions, wherein the series of instructions include at least one command to be executed by the at least one network device, wherein said bus controller is configured to execute the series of instructions including at least one of the instructions stored in the memory device in a manner independent of the operations of said host computer so as to control communications conducted with the at least one network device via the network bus, whereby said bus controller sends the at least one instruction to the network device and the network device executes the at least one command located in the at least one instruction independent of the operations of the host computer, wherein at least a first instruction of the series of instructions has at least one variable data field associated with variable data, wherein the memory device of said bus controller includes at least one register that is configured to store the variable data at a predefined address, wherein the bus controller including the memory device is configured to permit the host computer to change the variable data at the predefined address prior to execution of the first instruction in order to alter the variable data and therefore alter the first instruction, and wherein the at least one variable data field is configured to identify the predefined address such that when said bus controller executes the first instruction including the at least one variable data field said bus controller will retrieve the variable data from the memory device at the predefined address identified by the at least one variable data field, wherein said host computer is configured to periodically evaluate communications conducted via the network bus, and wherein said host computer is configured to alter the variable data associated with the at least one variable data field of the at least first instruction with a different value based upon the communications evaluated, and wherein the host computer is configured to store the different value in a register in the memory device and to reinsert the different value as a command or argument into the command schedule, and wherein the host computer is configured to alter the variable data during operation of the command schedule.