Patent ID: 7376760

Claim:
A data acquisition node comprising: a first circuit board supporting communications over a network; a second circuit board coupled to at least one of: i) an input device, and ii) an output device; a connector interface coupling multiple conductors of the first circuit board to the second circuit board; the first circuit board including a corresponding first programmable interface coupled to the multiple conductors, the second circuit board including a corresponding second programmable interface coupled to the multiple conductors, configuration settings of the first programmable interface and the second programmable interface enabling conveyance of signals between the first circuit board and second circuit board; wherein the first circuit board includes a first communication port supporting upstream communications and a second communication port to support downstream communications; and wherein the upstream communications include communications to a central controller and the downstream communications include communications to other data acquisition nodes in a data acquisition and control system; and wherein the first circuit board and corresponding first programmable interface, based on communications over the network from a remotely located controller, drives a signal to the second circuit board via at least one of the multiple conductors to synchronize the controller with functionality of the second circuit board.