Patent ID: 7552256

Claim:
A communication system for communicating commands and data between a bus controller and a plurality of data channels via a common digital bus, the communication system comprising: a bus controller connected to the common digital bus; a plurality of network device interfaces connected between the common digital bus and at least one of said plurality of data channels, wherein said network device interfaces each include a memory containing a unique number identifying the network device interface, and at least one address and group mask identifying each data channel connected to said network device interface, wherein said bus controller in a device inventory mode is configured to conduct a competition between the plurality of data channels to uniquely identify each network device interface, and then determine addresses and group masks for each data channel associated with the network device interface, wherein said network device interfaces do not allow the memory containing the addresses and group masks and special memory locations to be overwritten until after the unique number identifying the network device interface has been determined by the bus controller during the competition.