JPH05191468A - Data converting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a data converting device which can transfer the information among plural computers having different communication standards end protocols. CONSTITUTION:An extension port 2 used for input of information end an extension port 2 for output of information are selected by an inter-device connection instructing terminal equipment 12. The information is inputted through the input extension port 2, and the protocol of the input side is converted into a protocol, of the output side through a CPU 5, a ROM 6 and a RAM 8 and then outputted to the extension port 2 of the output side.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data converter capable of exchanging information between a plurality of computers having different communication standards and protocols.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Computers currently in use often have different communication standards and protocols depending on manufacturers. Therefore, models that use the same or compatible communication standard or protocol can exchange information with each other, but cannot directly exchange information between different models. Further, there are data conversion devices for exchanging information between different models, but these data conversion devices have a fixed communication standard, protocol, number of ports, and the like.

[0003]

Therefore, there is a limit to the type and number of computers that can exchange information by connecting to the conventional data exchange device. That is, when trying to exchange information between different models, a data exchange device corresponding to each model is required. Further, the number of output machines for one input machine is limited to one, and a plurality of output machines cannot be connected.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been proposed in view of the above, and is intended to enable the exchange of information between a plurality of computers having different communication standards and protocols, and at least two or more different communication standards. A plurality of input means, a plurality of output means respectively corresponding to at least two or more different communication standards, an input source selection means for selecting an input source of information from the plurality of input means, Output means for selecting the output destination of the information from the output means and the protocol for converting the information input by the input means selected by the input source selecting means into the protocol of the output means selected by the output destination selecting means. And a conversion means.

[0005]

The input source selecting means selects the input means for inputting the information, and the output destination selecting means selects the output means for outputting the information. The protocol conversion means converts the information input by the input means selected by the input source selection means into the protocol of the output means selected by the output destination selection means. Then, the information converted by the protocol conversion means is output to the selected output means.

[0006]

1 is a schematic block diagram of a data conversion apparatus 1 according to the present invention. The data converter 1 includes a plurality of expansion ports 2 that function as an input unit and an output unit.
(A, b, c). The expansion port 2 is made up of the RS232C standard (2a), the IEEE802.3 standard (2b), the GP-IP standard (2c), etc., respectively, and the central processing unit (via the expansion port connector 3 and expansion bus interface 4). It communicates with the CPU) 5, the ROM 6, the RAM 8 backed up by the battery 7, and the data communication controller 9.

The CPU 5, ROM 6, RAM 8 and data communication controller 9 also communicate with each other. The data communication controller 9 communicates with the inter-device connection instruction terminal 12 functioning as an input source selecting unit and an output destination selecting unit via the input interface 10 and the output interface 11.

The protocol converting means is the above CPU
5, the ROM 6 and the RAM 8 are used to convert the protocol of the input source computer connected to the expansion port 2 into the protocol of the output destination computer according to the procedure of the protocol conversion software.

The expansion port 2 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. The expansion port 2 has an expansion port connector 3 and communicates with the CPU 5 and the like via this connector 3. Further, an input interface 13 and an output interface 14 are provided on the computer connection side to connect to the computer. A bus interface 15 and a data communication controller 16 are provided between the expansion port connector 3 and the input interface 13 and the output interface 14 to control input / output data.

In this embodiment, the RS232C standard, the IEEE802.3 standard and the GP-IP standard are adopted as the expansion port 2 standard, and the VME bus or the multi-bus standard is adopted as the expansion bus interface 4 standard. Although the RS232C standard is adopted as the standard of the input interface 10 and the output interface 11 between the data communication controller 9 and the inter-device connection instruction terminal 12, the standard is not limited to these and any standard may be adopted. You may.

Next, a data conversion process using the data conversion device 1 according to the present invention will be described. The reception protocol is the basic type data transmission control procedure shown in FIG. 3 (JISX50
02) and the transmission protocol is shown in FIG.
The C procedure (binary data synchronous communication) will be described.

In the reception protocol defined by the basic data transmission control procedure shown in FIG. 3, text data is placed between a transmission control character "STX" indicating the start of text and a transmission control character "ETX" indicating the end of text. There is. Further, a transmission control character "BCC" for performing a block check is added after "ETX".

The "BCC" is used to detect a code transmission error in the horizontal parity system. Each bit value of BCC is defined such that the number of bits "1" of the bit number of all characters in the block is always an even number (or an odd number). Then, at the time of receiving the data, the number of “1” is checked for each bit for all the characters in the block, and it is confirmed that they are even (or odd). If it is an odd number (or an even number), one bit is incorrect (JISX5001).

The transmission protocol defined by the BSC procedure (binary data synchronous communication) shown in FIG. 4 has two or more transmission control characters "SYN" (four in this embodiment) indicating synchronization holding at the beginning of the transmission block. By adding and sending
The receiving side and the transmitting side are synchronized. Then, the text data is placed between the transmission control character "STX" indicating the start of the text and the transmission control character "ETX" indicating the end of the text. "CRC" for detecting an error in block data is added after "ETX".
Before and after this block, a transmission control character "PAD L" indicating the establishment of bit synchronization and a transmission control character "PAD t" indicating the end of the message are added.

On the receiving side, an error check is performed for each block, and an affirmative response (ACK0.ACK) is sent based on the check result.
1) or send negative acknowledgment (NACK). The error check for each block adopts a CRC method using a cyclic code. A basic polynomial (16th order polynomial) is used to create a cyclic code.

As shown in the flow chart of FIG. 5, the data conversion processing by the data conversion apparatus 1 is such that data is first input from a designated port (input port) selected by the inter-device connection instruction terminal 12, for example, the expansion port 2a. If there is, the compatibility of the specified receiving protocol is confirmed.

Next, the end of the received data is confirmed, and if the received data is normal, the text portion is extracted from the received data and the received contents are stored. Then, the data is converted according to the protocol of the designated port (output port) selected by the terminal for instructing inter-device connection, for example, the expansion port 2b, and the converted data is output to the selected designated port (output port).

The connection instruction process between the devices will be described with reference to FIG. The inter-device connection instruction terminal 12 includes, for example, a CPU,
The personal computer includes an arithmetic unit having a ROM, a RAM, etc., an input device having a keyboard, and a display device having a CRT. To specify the input port and the output port, the instruction content is input from the keyboard according to the input content message displayed on the CRT, and the input instruction content is stored.

The reception protocol compatibility confirmation process will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. When the received data is "STX" indicating the start of text, "0" is substituted in the input counter, the received data is stored in the input count address, and "1" is added to the value of the input counter. In this way, after sequentially storing the received data, the second data from the end of the input count indicates "ET".
If it is "X", BCC calculation is performed. That is, "ET
The reception process is continued until “X” and the subsequent “BCC” are received.

In the BCC calculation, if the calculated BCC matches the received BCC, it is recognized that the reception has been completed normally. On the other hand, the calculated BCC and the received BCC
If they do not match, it is recognized that an error has occurred in the reception process, and the reception process is performed again.

The conversion process to the designated transmission protocol will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. “PAD L” indicating establishment of bit synchronization is stored, four “SYN” indicating synchronization hold are stored, “STX” indicating start of text is stored, text data stored in the receiving process is stored, and end of text is stored. The “ETX” shown is stored. And CRC
Is stored, the result is stored, and “PADt” indicating the end of the message is stored. According to the procedure described above, the transmission data is created by converting the protocol of the reception data.

[0022]

As described above, in the data conversion apparatus according to the present invention, the input source selecting means selects the input means for inputting the information, and the output destination selecting means outputs the information. Then, the protocol conversion means converts the information input by the input means selected by the input source selection means into the protocol of the output means selected by the output destination selection means. Therefore, even computers of different models that employ the same or incompatible communication standards and protocols can directly exchange information. Further, as many computers as the number of input / output ports can be connected, and if the installed input / output ports have compatible communication standards, information can be exchanged between any models.

That is, in data conversion between computers of different models, it is not necessary to prepare a plurality of data exchange devices corresponding to respective models, and a plurality of computers can be connected to one data conversion device. it can. Therefore, the versatility of the data exchange device is enhanced, and it is possible to provide a data exchange device that is very advantageous in terms of cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a data conversion device.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an expansion port.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a reception protocol.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a transmission protocol.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a data conversion process.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a connection instruction process between devices.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a compatibility confirmation process of a reception protocol.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing conversion processing to a transmission protocol.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 data converter 2 expansion port 5 central processing unit (CPU) 6 ROM 8 RAM 12 terminal for device connection

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Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Information is selected from a plurality of input means corresponding to at least two or more different communication standards, a plurality of output means corresponding to at least two or more different communication standards, and a plurality of input means. Input source selecting means for selecting the input source of, the output destination selecting means for selecting the output destination of the information from the plurality of output means, and the information input by the input means selected by the input source selecting means A data conversion apparatus comprising: a protocol conversion unit that converts the protocol of the output unit selected by the selection unit.