Patent ID: 7462103

Claim:
A gaming system comprising: a plurality of devices to be individually accessed, arranged in a string of N nodes having first and second spaced ends, with each node including up to M of the devices, wherein M and N are whole numbers greater than one; a host controller directly connected to only the first end of the string and having a data out terminal; a plurality of local controllers respectively associated with the nodes; each local controller having a data in terminal and a data out terminal and including a M-bit shift register with the register positions respectively connected to device output terminals to which the devices of the associated node may respectively be connected; the data out terminal of the host controller being connected to the data in terminal of a first node and the data in terminal of each of the other nodes being connected to the data out terminal of the preceding node in the string so that the string of nodes provides a (M×N)-bit shift register; the host controller producing at its data out terminal a position-based output signal comprising a serial digital data stream including M×N bits followed by a strobe indicator so that the M×N bits are sequentially loaded into and respectively fill the positions of the (M×N)-bit register, wherein the bits received by a node are determined by the position of the node in the string; and each local controller being responsive to the strobe indicator for utilizing the contents of its M-bit shift register for accessing the associated devices.