Patent ID: 6996708

Claim:
A communication control module for managing communication between a scanner hosting the communication control module and one of a plurality of alternative terminal configurations with which the scanner may be used, the communication being conducted over a universal serial bus connection, the communication control module comprising: a microcontroller; a RAM memory for storing data and software executed by the microcontroller, a portion of the RAM being base memory accessible only in response to interrupts; a semipermanent memory for storing software to be transferred to the RAM when required in the operation of the communication control module, the semipermanent memory being operative to transfer software to RAM upon power up or reset of the control module; a plurality of alternative initialization modules hosted in the semipermanent memory, each of the alternative initialization modules being adapted for use to control communication between the scanner and a specified one of the alternative terminal configurations, one of the alternative initialization modules being selected and loaded into RAM when needed to manage communication between the control module and a terminal, each initialization module including an interrupt service request table adapted to the specified terminal configuration with which the module is adapted for use; and a bootloader hosted in the semipermanent memory, the bootloader operating to detect a configuration in which the scanner is being used, detection of the configuration including detection of the terminal configuration with which the scanner is being used, and to select an initialization module to be loaded in order to manage communication with the detected terminal configuration, the bootloader being further operative to cause the transfer of the selected initialization module to the RAM for execution of the initialization module by the microcontroller, the transfer including transfer of the interrupt service request table into the base memory.