Claims
- 1. An apparatus comprising:
- a host computer having a CPU connected to a system bus;
- a controller having a first side connected to said system bus and to a buffer memory and a second side connected to a network physical layer and to said buffer memory;
- a main memory connected to said system bus and storing a network operating system having a protocol stack which includes a lower protocol layer that provides a data structure that locates data in main memory to be transmitted over said physical link and communicates with a driver layer which in turn communicates with said controllers,
- logic in said host for causing the loading of said lower protocol data structure with physical addresses at initialization; and
- logic in said host for causing said driver layer to create a single data structure that points directly to said lower protocol space data structure.
- 2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said single data structure comprises a TxCB which includes:
- a header field;
- a link address field;
- an address field that points to said lower protocol space data structure;
- a data fragment number field; and
- a optional data byte count field.
- 3. The apparatus of claim 1 further including logic for transferring said single data structure to said controller.
- 4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said network operating system is Netware and said lower protocol space data structure is a transmit control block and a transmit data block data structure.
- 5. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein said transmit command block is located in driver space.
- 6. An apparatus comprising:
- a host computer having a CPU connected to a system bus;
- a controller having a first side connected to said system bus and to a buffer memory and a second side connected to a network physical layer and to said buffer memory;
- a main memory connected to said system bus and storing a network operating system having a protocol stack which includes a lower protocol layer that provides transmit control blocks, transmit control block fragment arrays and transmit data buffers in said main memory and communicates with a driver layer which communicates with said controller and which contains a transmit command block;
- logic in said host for specifying the loading of said lower protocol data structure with physical addresses at initialization; and
- logic in said host for setting up a pointer in said transmit command block to said transmit control block fragment array; and
- logic in said host for issuing a transmit command.
- 7. The apparatus of claim 6 further characterized by logic for copying any optional data from said transmit control block to said transmit command block.
- 8. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein said transmit command block is created at initialization.
- 9. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein said network operating system is Netware.
Parent Case Info
This is a divisional of application Ser. No. 08/541,925, filed Oct. 10, 1995, issued on Mar. 17, 1998 as U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,681.
US Referenced Citations (5)
Non-Patent Literature Citations (1)
Entry |
A Refine Cut-Through Buffer Management Scheme for layered Protocol Sta'cks by Yuh-Ming Huang et al.; IEEE Comm., Mar. 1994 pp.82-85. |
Divisions (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
541925 |
Oct 1995 |
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