Patent ID: 7337104

Claim:
A system for providing control of a hardware device, the system comprising: a controller; and an interface card that couples the hardware device to the controller, wherein: (i) settings for a desired emulation of a hardware device are provided to the interface card; (ii) the controller sends a request to the interface card, wherein the request is for determining a status of the hardware device, wherein functional code included in the interface card translates the request for the hardware device; (iii) emulator code included in the interface card provides a response to the functional code, in response to receiving by the emulator code the request, wherein responses provided by the emulator code emulate responses of the hardware device; (iv) a determination is made from the response as to whether the hardware device is ready; (v) the controller sends commands to drive the hardware device, if the hardware device is ready, wherein the commands are translated by the functional code and received by the emulator code; (vi) the controller sends data in response to requests from the emulator code as translated by the functional code; and (vii) operation of the functional code and other components are evaluated.