Patent ID: 7730362

Claim:
A method for establishing communications between at least two independent software modules, comprising: providing a media connection between software modules, wherein the software modules employ a communications protocol and participate in a bi-directional master-slave relationship between a master module and a slave module; sending arbitrary data between said master and slave modules, wherein said arbitrary data is used by the master module to control and obtain status from the slave module, and said sending arbitrary data further enables the slave module to return data and status information to the master module; and employing a communications watchdog between the master and slave modules, wherein said communications watchdog monitors communications quality between the master and slave modules and impairs functionality in the master and slave modules when communications quality degrades, wherein communications protocol comprises transmitting bytes in a packet consisting of: a start indication; a message identifier; an optional service identifier; a class identifier; an optional length of data; a checksum; and a checksum complement.