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`IN THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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`In re application of:
`Application No.:
`Filed:
`'For:
`
`Tasler, Michael
`Applied For
`Herewith
`FLEXIBLE INTERFACE
`
`—
`
`Attention: EOIUS _
`Box PCT ‘
`Assistant Commissioner for Patents"
`Washington, DC 20231
`
`Group No.:
`Examiner:
`
`Unknown
`Unknown
`
`EXPRESS MAIL CERTIFICATE
`
`."Express Mail" Label Number: EL304928607US
`Date of Deposit:
`‘
`06/14/99 .
`
`I hereby state that the following attached papers or fee:
`'
`'
`V 1
`Check No. 5994 in the amount of $420.00
`Transmittal Letter to.the United States Elected Office (BO/US) (Entry into U.S. National Phase
`E".
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`ed with the PCT (36 pages)
`Copy of German Application fil
`PCT/EP98/01187 as originally filed (26 pages)
`Translation of PCT Application
`Copy of the IPER (6 pages)
`First'Preliminary Amendment and Remarks (2 pages) V
`- Final version ofPCT/EP98/Ol 187 for the prosecution at the.U
`amendment (28 pages)
`Attorney For Patent ApplicatiOn (28 pages)
`Declaration and Power of
`all Entity Status - Independent Inventor (1 page)
`Verified Statement (Declaration) Claiming Sm
`Copy of International Search Report (7 pages)
`IDS Transmittal (1 page)
`IDS Form PTO/SB/OSA and 08B (2 pages)
`"it; Concise explanation of documents cited in ex
`international applications (4 pages)
`IDS References (7 for a total of92 pages)
`
`SPTO to be filed as first preliminary
`
`amination proceedings of corresponding foreign and
`
`Elaine C, VonSpreckelsen
`
`
`
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`CHAPTER II
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`TRANSMITTAL LETTER A
`UNITED STATES ELECTED OFFICE (EO/US)
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`(ENTRY INTO U.S. NATIONAL PHASE UNDER CHAPTER II)
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`PCT/EP98/01187
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`0-3 March 1998 (3.03.98)
`
`04 March 1997 (4.03.97)
`
`,
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`TITLE OF INVENTION:
`APPLICANTGS):
`‘
`
`FLEXIBLE INTERFACE
`Tasler, Michael
`
`'
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`
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`--
`
`‘
`
`.
`
`.
`
`Attention: EO/US
`Box PCT
`Assistant Commissioner for Patents
`Washington DC 20231
`1.
`Applicant herewith submits to the United States Elected Office (EO/US) the following items under
`7‘
`35 U.S.C. §371:-
`-
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`
`a
`
`b.
`
`This express request to immediately begin national examination procedures (35 U.S.C.
`one».
`'
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`TheUS. National Fee (35 U.S’.C. §371(c)(1)) and other fees (37 C.F.R. § 1.492) asindicated
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`, in an envelope as “Express Mail Post Office to
`_
`Addressee,” Mailing Label Number'EL 4928607US, addressed to Attention: BO/US, Box PCT, Assistant Commissiong'for >
`Patents, Washington, DC. 20231:
`'
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`2.
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`Fees;
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`(1) FOR
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`Total Fees enclosed
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`a
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`$420.00
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`A check in the amount of $420.00 to cover the above fees is enclosed.
`
`,
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`3. A copy of the International application as filed (35 U.S.C. §371(c)(2‘)) is transmitted herewith.
`
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`transmitted herewith.
`'
`‘
`
`.
`
`5. A. copy of the international examination report (PCT/IPEA/409) is transmitted herewith.
`
`6. There were no annex(es) to the international preliminary examination report.
`
`7. A translation ofthe annexes to-the international preliminary examination report is not required as there .
`' were no annexes.
`
`(Transmittal Letter tothe United States Elected Office (B0/US)-—page 2 of'3)
`
`2
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`8. An-oath or declaratic,v_,.,rtlie inventor (35'U.S.C. §371(c)(4)) coinpz-yi’ng with 35 U.S.C. §l~'_l-5 is
`v submitted herewith, and’ such oathgor declaration is attached to the application.
`
`(
`
`II. Other document(s).or information included:
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`9. An International SearchReport (PCT/ISA/2 10) orDeclaration under PCT Article 17(2)(a) is-transmitted
`' herewith.
`r
`
`10.
`
`Information Disclosure Statement under 37 C.F.R. §§1.97 and 1.98 is transmitted herewith. ‘ Also
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`the examination proceedings of corresponding foreign and international applications, and copies of
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`b. Verified- Statement (Declaration) Claiming Small Entity Status
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`firtfitttfifitfl"VEflflTEfiifafi
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`,~ AUTHORIZATION T0 CHARGE ADDITIONAL FEES
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`37 C.F.R. §l.492(b), (c), and (d) (presentation of extra claims)
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`(Transmittal Letter to the United States Elected Office (BO/US)—page 3 of 3)
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`_
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`v
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`09/331002
`..
`510 R066 PCT/P170 14 JUN"l999
`
`Flexible Interface;
`
`mm
`
`The present invention relates to the transfer of data and in particular to interface
`
`devices
`
`for “cemmunication between a computer or host device and a data
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`transmit/receive device from which data is to be acquired or with which two—way
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`communication is to take place.
`
`Existing data acquisition systems for computers are very limited in their areas of
`
`application. Generally such systems can be classified into two groups.
`
`In the first group host devices or computer systems are attached by means of an
`
`interface to a device whose data is to be acquired. The interfaces of this group are
`
`normally standard interfaces which, with specific driver software, can be used with a
`
`variety of host systems. An advantage of such interfaces is that they are largely
`
`independent of the host device. However, a disadvantage is that they generally require
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`very sophisticated drivers which are prone to malfunction and which limit data
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`transfer. rates between the device connected to the interface and the host device and
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`vice versa. Further, it is often very difficult to implement such interfaces for portable
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`systems and they offer few possibilities for adaptation with the result that such
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`systems offer little flexibility.
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`The devices from which data is to be acquired cover the entire electrical engineering
`
`spectrum. In a typical case, it is assumed that a customer who operates, for example, a
`diagnostic [radiology system in a medical engineering environment reports a fault. A
`
`field service technician of the system manufacturer visits the customer and reads
`
`system log files generated by the diagnostic radiology system by means a portable
`
`computer or laptop for example. If the fault cannot be localized or if the fault is
`
`intermittent, it will be necessary for the service technician to read not only an error
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`log file but also data from current operation. It is apparent that in this case fast data
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`transfer and rapid data analysis are necessary.
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`Another case requiring the use of an interface could be, for example, when an
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`electronic measuring device, e.g. a multimeter, is attached to a computer system to
`
`transfer the data measured by the multimeter to the computer. Particularly when long-
`
`term measurements or large volumes of data‘are involved is it necessary for the
`
`interface to support a high data transfer rate.
`
`From these randomly chosen examples it can be seen that an interface may be put to
`
`totally different useth is therefore desirable that an interface be sufficiently flexible
`
`to permit attachment of very different electrical or electronic systems to a host deviCe
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`by means of the interface. To prevent operator error, it is also desirable that a service
`
`technician is not required to operate different interfaces in different ways for different
`applications but that, if possible, a universal method of operating the interface be
`provided for a large number of applications.
`
`To increase the'data transfer rates across an interface, the route chosen in the second
`
`group of data acquisition systems for the interface devices was to speCifically match
`the interface very closely to individual host systems or computer systems. The
`advantage of this solution is that high data transfer rates are possible. However, a
`
`disadvantage is that the drivers for the interfaces of the second group are very closely
`matched to a single host system with the result that they generally cannot be used with
`
`other host systems or their use is very ineffective. Further, such types of interface
`have the disadvantage that they must be installed inside the computer casing to
`achieve maximum data transfer rates as they access the internal host bus system. They
`are therefore generally not suitable for portable host systems in the form of laptops
`whose minimum possible size leaves little internal space to plug in an interface card.
`
`A solution to this problem is offered by the interface devices of IOtech (business
`
`address: 25971 Cannon Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44146, USA) which are suitable for
`
`laptops such as the WaveBook/512 (registered trademark). The interface devices are
`connected by means of a plug—in card, approximately the size of a credit card, to the
`PCMCIA interface which is now a standard feature in laptops. The plug-in card
`
`converts the PCMCIA interface into an interface known in the art as IEEE 1284. The
`I said plug-in card provides a special print-er interface which is enhanced as regards the-
`data transfer rate and delivers a data transfer rate of approximately 2 MBps as
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`compared with a rate of approx. 1 MBps for known printer interfaces. The known
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`interface device generally consists of a driver component, a digital signal processor, a
`
`buffer and a hardware module which terminates in a connector to which the device
`
`whose data is to be acquired is attached. The driver component is attached directly to
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`the enhanced printer interface thus permitting the known interface device to establish
`
`a connection between a computer and the device whose data is to be acquired.
`
`In order to work with. the said interface, an interface-specific driver must be installed
`
`on the host device so that the host device can communicate with the digital signal
`
`-
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`processor of the interface card. As described above, the driver must be installed on the
`
`host device. If the driver is a driver developed specifically for the host device, a high
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`data transfer rate is achieved but the driver cannot be easily installed on a different
`
`host system. However, if the driver is a general driver which is as flexible as possible
`
`and which can be used on many host devices, compromises must be accepted with,
`
`regard to the data transfer rate.
`
`Particularly in an application for multi—tasking systems in which several different
`
`tasks such as data acquisition, data display and editing are to be performed quasi—
`
`simultaneously, each task is normally assigned a certain priority by the host system. A
`driver supporting a special task requests the central processing system of the host
`
`device for processor resources in order to perform its task. Depending on the
`
`particular priority assignment method and on the driver implementation, a particular
`
`share of processor resources is assigned to a special task in particular time slots.
`
`Conflicts arise if one or more drivers are implemented in such a way that they have
`
`the highest priority by default, i.e. they are incompatible, as happens in practice in
`
`many applications. It may occur that both drivers are set to highest priority which, in
`
`the worst case, can result in a system crash.
`
`EP 0685799 A1 discloses an interface by means of which several peripheral devices
`can be attached to a bus. An interface is connected between the bus of a host device
`
`and various peripheral devices. The interface comprises a finite state machine and
`
`several branches each of which is assigned to a peripheral device. Each branch
`
`V comprises. a data manager, cycle control, user logic and a buffer. This known interface
`
`fiflfl?fifl“a
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`‘w1a.»“a
`It?
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`inErie“ii?"'E}!713'
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`device provides optimal matching between a host device and a specific peripheral
`device.
`
`The specialist publication IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 05, page
`
`245; "Communication Method between Devices through FDD Interface" discloses an
`
`interface which connects a host device to a peripheral device via a floppy disk drive
`
`interface. The, interface consists in particular of an address generator, an MFM
`
`encoder/decoder, a serial/parallel adapter and a format signal generator. The interface
`
`makes it possible to attach not only a floppy disk drive but also a further peripheral
`
`device to the FDD host controller of a host device. The host device assumes that a
`
`floppy disk drive is always attached to its floppy disk drive controller and
`
`communication is initiated if the address is correct. However, this document contains
`
`no information as to how communication should be possible if the interface is
`
`connected to a multi—purpose interface instead of to a floppy disk drive controller.
`
`It
`is
`the object of the present
`invention to provide an interface device for
`communication between a host device and a data transmit/receive device whose use is
`
`host device—independent and which delivers a high data transfer rate.
`
`This object is achieved by an interface device according to claim 1 or 12 and by a
`
`method according to claim 15.
`
`The present invention is based on the finding that both a high data transfer rate and
`
`host device-independent use can be achieved if a driver for an input/output device
`
`customary in a host device, normally present in most commercially available host
`
`devices, is utilized. Drivers for input/outputdevices customary in a host device which
`
`are found in practically all host devices are, for example, drivers for hard disks, for
`
`graphics devices or for printer devices. As however the hard disk interfaces in
`
`common host devices which can be, for example, IBM PCs, IBM—compatible PCs,
`
`Commodore PCs, Apple computers or even workstations, are the interfaces with the
`highest data transfer rate, the hard disk driver is utilized in the preferred embodiment
`of the interface device of the present invention. Drivers for other’storage devices such
`
`as floppy disk drives, CD-ROM drives or tape drives could also be utilized in order to
`
`implement the interface device according to the present invention.
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`
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`"if
`yrit“.
`are
`
`As described in the following, the interface device according to the present invention
`is to be attached to a host device by means of a multi—purpose interface of the host
`device which can be implemented, for example, as an SCSI interface or as an
`
`enhanced printer interface. Multi—purpose interfaces comprise both an interface card
`and specific driver software for the interface card. The driver software can be
`
`designed so that it can replace the BIOS driver routines. Communication between the
`
`host device and the devices attached to the multi-purpose interface then essentially
`takes place by means of the specific driver software for the multi-purpose interface
`
`and no longer primarily by means of BIOS routines of the host device. Recently
`however drivers for multi—purpose interfaces can also already be integrated in the
`
`BIOS system of the host device as, alongside classical input/output interfaces, multi-
`
`purpose interfaces are becoming increasingly common in host devices. It is of course
`
`also possible to use BIOS routines in parallel with the specific driver software for the
`
`multi—purpose interface, if this is desired.
`
`The interface device according to the present invention comprises a processor means,
`a memory means, a first connecting device for interfacing the host device with the
`interface device, and a second connecting device for interfacing the interface device
`with the data transmit/receive device. The interface device is configured by the
`processor means and the memory means in such a way that the interface device, when
`receiving an inquiry from the host device via the first connecting device as to the type
`of a device attached to the host device, sends a signal, regardless of the type of the
`data transmit/receive device,
`to the host device via the first connecting device which
`signals to the host device that it is communicating with an input/output device. The
`interface device according to the present invention therefore simulates, both in terms
`of hardware and software, the way in which a conventional input/output device
`functions, preferably that of a hard disk driVe. As support
`for hard disks is
`implemented as stande in all commercially available host systems, the simulation of
`a hard disk, for example, can provide host device—independent use. The interface
`
`device according to the present invention therefore no longer communicates with the
`host device or computer by means of a specially designed driver but by means of a
`program which is present in theBIOS system (Basic Input/Output System) and is
`normally precisely matched to the specific computer system on which it is installed,
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`d
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`
`or by means of a specific program for the multi—purpose interface. Consequently, the
`
`interface device according to the present invention combines the advantages of both
`
`groups. On the one hand, communication between the computer and the interface
`takes place by means of a host device-specific BIOS program or by means of a driver
`
`program which is matched to the multi—purpose interface and which could be regarded
`
`as a "device-specific driver". On the other hand,
`the BIOS program or a
`corresponding multi—purpose interface program which operates one of the common
`
`input/output interfaces in host systems is therefore present in all host systems so that
`
`the interface device acCording to the present invention is host device-independent.
`
`In the following, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be explained in
`
`more detail with reference to the drawings enclosed, in which:
`
`Fig. 1
`
`shows a general block diagram of the interface device according to the
`
`present invention; and
`
`Fig. 2 shows a detailed block diagram of an interface device according to a preferred
`embodiment of the present invention.
`
`Fig.
`
`1 shows a general block diagram of an interface device 10 according to the
`
`present invention. A first connecting device 12 of the interface device 10 can be
`
`attached to a host device (not shown) via a host line 11. The first connecting device is
`
`attached both to a digital signal processor 13 and to a memory means 14. The digital
`
`signal processor 13 and the memory means 14 are also attached to a second
`
`connecting device 15 by means of bi-directional communication lines (shown for all
`
`lines by means of two directional arrows). The second connecting device can be
`
`attached by means of an output line 16 to a data transmit/receive device which is to
`
`receive data from the host device or from which data is to be read, i.e. acquired, and
`
`transferred to the host device. The data tranSmit/receive device itself can also
`
`communicate actively with .the host device via the first and second connecting device,
`
`as described in more detail in the following.
`
`4 Communication between the host system or host device and the interface device is
`
`based on'known standard access commands as supported by all known operating
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`IMpg-r1‘...fli::=I-_a'$‘f.r,:€;:b‘=if
`
`systems (e. g. DOS, Windows, Unix). Preferably, the interface device according to the
`
`present
`
`invention simulates a hard disk with a root directory whose entries are
`
`"virtual" files which can be created for the most varied functions. When the host
`
`device system with which the interface device according to the present invention is
`
`connected is booted and a data transmit/receive device is also attached to the interface
`
`device 10, usual BIOS routines or multi-purpose interface programs issue an
`
`instruction, known by those skilled in the art as the INQUIRY instruction, to the
`
`input/output interfaces in the host device. The digital signal processor 13 receives this
`
`inquiry instruction via the first connecting device and generates a signal'which is sent
`to the host device '(not shown) again via the first connecting device 12 and the host
`
`line 11. This signal indicates to the host device that, for example, a hard disk drive is
`
`attached at the interface to which the INQUIRY instruction was sent-Optionally, the
`
`host device can send an instruction, known by those skilled in the art as "Test Unit
`
`Ready", to the interface device to request more precise details regarding the queried
`
`device.
`
`Regardless of which datautransmit/receive device at the output line 16 is attached to
`
`the second connecting device, the digital signal processor 13 informs the host device
`
`that it
`
`is communicating with a hard disk drive. If the host device receives the
`
`response that a drive is present, it then sends a request to the interface device 10 to
`
`read the boot sequence which, on actual hard disks, normally resides on the first
`
`sectors of the disk. The digital signal processor 13, whose operating system in stored
`
`in the memory means 14, responds to this instruction by sending to the host device a
`
`virtual boot sequence which, in the case of actual drives, includes the drive type, the
`
`starting position and the length of the file allocation table (FAT), the number of
`
`sectors, etc., known to those skilled in the art. Once the host device has received this
`
`data, it assumes that the interface device 10 according to a preferred embodiment of
`
`the present invention is a hard disk drive. In reply to an instruction from the host
`
`device to display the directory of the "virtual" hard disk drive simulated by the
`
`interface device 10 with respect to the host device, the digital Signal processor can
`
`respond to the host device in exactly the same way as a conventional hard disk would,
`
`namely by reading on request the file allocation table or FAT on a sector specified in
`
`' the boot sequence, normally the first writable sector, and transferring it to the host
`
`device, and subsequently by transferring the directory structure of the virtual hard
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`..
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`‘"
`
`in.
`
`disk. Further, it is possible that the FAT is not read until immediately prior to reading
`
`or storing the data of the "virtual" hard disk and not already at initialization.
`
`In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the digital signal processor 13,
`
`which need not necessarily be implemented as a digital signal processor but may be
`any other
`of microprocessor, comprises a first and a second command
`
`interpreter. The first command interpreter carries out the steps described above whilst
`
`the second command interpreter carries out the read/write assignment to specific
`
`functions. If the user now wishes to read data from the data transmit/receive deviCe
`
`via the line 16, the host device sends a command, for example "read file xy", to the
`
`interface device. As described above, the interface device appears to the host device
`
`as a hard disk. The second command interpreter of the digital signal processor now
`
`interprets the read command of the host processor as a data transfer command, by
`
`decoding whether
`
`"xy"
`
`denotes,
`
`for
`
`example,
`
`a
`
`"real—time
`
`input"
`
`file,
`
`a
`
`"configuration" "file or an executable file, whereby the same begins to transfer data
`
`from the data transmit/receive device via the second connecting device to the first
`
`connecting device and via the line 11 to the host device.
`
`Preferably, the