Patent ID: 7143197

Claim:
A monitoring system for monitoring a plurality of signal-carrying transmission links for occurrence of an event, the system comprising: an event monitor connected to a plurality of transmission links, each of said transmission links having a respective transmission link address, said event monitor repeatedly receiving data from each of the plurality of transmission links, said event monitor having a memory for storing data for each of the addresses and a comparator for comparing previously received data stored in the memory to presently received data for each of the addresses; a storage register coupled to receive a datastream from said event monitor and to selectively store an event data portion of the datastream responsive to receipt of a predetermined signal; an address sequencer for successively generating and transmitting to said storage register address data corresponding to the transmission link addresses; said event monitor being connected to receive the address data from said address sequencer and responsively transmit to said storage register in the datastream data corresponding to each address, and to transmit said predetermined signal to said storage register when the comparator detects a difference between the previously received data stored in the memory and the presently received data for each of the addresses; and a signaling device connected to receive the predetermined signal from said event monitor and transmit an interrupt signal to cause a microprocessor to read the event data from said storage register responsive thereto.