JPH0553336B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a data transfer method in a personal computer network system, and particularly to a data transfer method suitable when a single-task operating system is used.

[Background of the invention]

Conventional data transfer methods include Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-148929.
There is one mentioned in the publication. This conventional example uses a method of dividing transmission data into general data and priority data and transmitting them.

When this idea is applied to a personal computer network, the data to be sent is not divided by destination, so if the destination of the data in the first transmission queue is busy, the data of other destinations will also have to wait, resulting in a decrease in transfer efficiency. Leads to. On the other hand, if a group of transmitted and received data is related to one business process as a whole, a control mechanism or the like is required to recognize that the received data corresponds to the transmitted data and restart the corresponding business process. Therefore, the contents of transfer control become complicated.

[Purpose of the invention]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a data transfer method in a personal computer network system that enables pseudo real-time processing by coexisting averaging transfer and priority transmission/reception processing.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention is directed to a personal computer network system that performs data communication between multiple personal computers via a single communication path. In this computer network system, the possible opportunities for data transfer are equal between each computer. It is rare that a difference in priority occurs between data sent to each personal computer.

Therefore, by managing the transmission data queue for each computer, the data transfer order is averaged for each computer.

On the other hand, in addition to this process, there is a high-priority process in which a plurality of pieces of data are sent and received between PCs, and the state does not change until the process is completed. Only in this process, the transmission data is directly transmitted without being registered in the queue, and the data is received by specifying the transmission destination.

The above two data transfer methods can coexist and be used separately in business processing.

[Embodiments of the invention]

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a personal computer network system. A network system 5 is constructed by connecting a plurality of network controllers 41 to 41 in parallel to a single bus 3.
Personal computers 11-14 were connected to each network controller 41-44 via interface control units 21-24.

The personal computers 11 to 14 have a built-in single-task operating system that allows only one program to run at one time, and are managed by this system. Examples of single-task operating systems include Microsoft's MS-DOS and Digital Research's
There is CP/M.

The personal computers 11 to 14 have a keyboard and a CRF in addition to a processor. Various inputs are made from the keyboard, and displays are displayed on the CRT, which is used as a man-machine interface.

The network controllers 41 to 44 have a speed conversion function (the speed on the bus 3 and the personal computers 11 to 14).
handling the difference in processing speed on the bus 3 and the speed on the transmission lines 21A to 24A), functions for the network controller,
It has a control function for the interface control units 21 to 24, and a buffer function (having a buffer memory). Furthermore, it has a bus 3 exclusive function.

The interface control units 21 to 24 perform interface control such as a command function to select the number of transfer unit bits (selection of 8 bits, 7 bits, or 5 bits) and a command to select the number of synchronous bits.
This is a control known as "RS232C control" (or JIS-C6361).

Control programs built into each of the personal computers 11 to 14 are shown in FIGS. 2 and 4. Furthermore, each computer 1
1 to 14 have a transmission table 91 and a reception buffer 92, as shown in A and B in FIG. The control program 7 in FIG. 2 is for scanning processing;
The control program 8 in the figure is for interrupt-activated communication control processing. The scanning processing program shown in FIG. 2 processes randomly generated key inputs (inputs from the man-machine interface) and data transmitted from other personal computers via the network 5.

The contents of A and B of FIG. 3 are between the program of FIG. 2 and the program of FIG. 4 and play the role of data management and temporary storage. Therefore, through the contents of Figure 3 A and B, Figures 2 and 4 can be
It may be considered that the program shown in the figure is combined.

In Figure 2, there are four business processes 61, 62, 63,
Has 64. The business process 61 is for average communication service, the business process 62 is for conversational communication process,
Depending on the key input and the content of the key instruction, either business process 61 or 62 is activated.

Business processing 63 corresponds to 61 and is used for average communication services, and business processing 64 corresponds to 62 and is used for conversational communication processing. Which of the business processes 63 and 64 is activated depends on the type determination result of the received data type.

What is "CRT display" in business processing 61 and 62?
This is a display for selecting the work content of business processing,
A plurality of business processes are displayed, and the worker selects one of them. Business Process 63 “CRT Display”
is used to check the processing results of the main business process.

The "business main processing" in the business processes 61, 62, 63, and 64 refers to each business process itself, for example, processing such as updating a data table.

Now, which of the business processes 61 and 62 in FIG. 2 is activated is determined by the content of key input from a keyboard provided in the personal computer itself. For example, in the case of the personal computer 11, the business process 61 or 62 is instructed by the keys (particularly the function keys) of the own terminal. In the business process 61, the worker selects specific content from the contents of the "CRT display", then specifies the content via the screen selection response key (numeric keypad), inputs it into the personal computer 11, and further performs the main business process. and issues a transmission request.

In business processing 62, the worker selects specific content from the contents of the "CRT display", then specifies the content via the screen selection response key (numeric keypad) and inputs it into the personal computer 11, and then performs conversation communication processing. 621, and performs the main business processing. Details of this conversation communication process 621 are shown in FIG.

Furthermore, the presence or absence of a transmission request is checked in FIG. 2, and if there is a transmission request, average transmission service processing 6 is performed.
11 and performs an average transmission service.
This service processing is detailed in FIG. Then,
The presence or absence of input of received data is checked, and if input is present, the type of received data is determined. As a result of this determination, if the response task processing is for an average transmission service, the process moves to 63, and if the response task processing is for conversational communication, the process moves to 64.

In the business process 63, the main business process is performed, and then confirmation is performed based on the CRT display contents. In the business processing 64, the main body of the business is processed, and then data is transmitted.

On the other hand, the communication control processing program 8 in FIG. 4 is as follows. The communication control processing program 8 is activated by a transmission/reception interrupt as a hard interrupt or an interrupt by a transmission macro instruction as a soft interrupt.

The connection control in the program 8 is such that the network controllers 41 to 44 mutually occupy the bus 3 and enter into a connection relationship. For example, to connect personal computers 11 and 13, network controllers 41 and 43 are made to occupy bus 3. There are various ways to occupy this bus 3. For example, if one side issues a "connect command" and the other side receives this and sends an "answer block", the occupancy of bus 3 is established, and after that, in response to a request for occupancy of bus 3, it sends "possession not possible". There is a way.

The communication control in the program 8 is to control actual communication such as communication in units of packets.

The transmission mode control in the program 8 refers to various commands and control of the transmission mode in the interface control units 21 to 24.

The soft interrupt caused by the transmission macro instruction in this program 8 is performed by the transmission macro instruction when reading the transmission macro instruction shown in FIGS. 6 and 7.

Now, the average transmission service is shown in Figure 5, A, B,
As shown in C, one transmission request is sent to each destination from the queue of transmission requests managed for each destination.
(First In First Out) and transmit the data using the processing procedure shown in FIG. Conversation communication is the 7th
As shown in the figure, first, the first communication destination is fixed, and then the communication control processing program 8 is started directly without intermediating the transmission request queue in FIG. Perform the transfer. The communication destination is fixed by instructing the communication control processing program 8 to use conversational communication as the communication processing method, and by refusing connections for data transfer with other than the specified communication destination during a conversational communication request. It will come true.

The above control program 7, a business process 61 that uses the average communication service, a business process 63 corresponding to it, and a business process 6 that uses conversational communication.
2. Incorporate a business process 64 that responds to it, install it on each personal computer 11 to 14, and run it. It is assumed that business processes 61 and 62 are activated in response to function keys F1 and F2. So computer 11
, when the business process 61 is activated in the control program 7 in response to the depression of the function key F1, transmission request queues 212 to 214 to the personal computers 12 to 14 are registered in the management area, respectively, as shown in FIG. do. After this, the average transmission service process 611 is activated by the control program 7, and the sixth
Data is sent to the corresponding PC according to the processing procedure shown in the figure. In the average transmission service processing 611, assuming that the previous transmission destination was the personal computer 12, this time, the first transmission request 2 to the personal computer 13 is sent.
13 is processed and sends the corresponding data. At the next startup of the average sending service process, the computer 14
Then, at the next startup, the corresponding data is sequentially transferred to 12. In each of the destination personal computers 12 to 14, the communication control processing program 8 receives the corresponding data, activates the corresponding business process 63 by the control program 7, and transfers the received data to the business process 63. In the business process 63, processes such as table updating and CRT display are executed based on this received data, and the process is completed.

If the personal computer 11 processes the transmission request 213 to the personal computer 13 and sends the corresponding data, if data is being transferred between the personal computers 12 and 13,
The communication control processing program 8 responds to the average transmission service processing 611 with a busy result using a return code. Upon receiving the return code, the average transmission service processing 611 outputs the CRT, ends the processing, and transfers control to the control program 7. Therefore, when the average transmission service process 611 is activated next time, data is transferred to the next destination personal computer 14. Whenever there is a request for transmission, next to the personal computer 12 and then again to the personal computer 13, the transfer service is performed sequentially.

Business processing 6 on PC 11 using conversational communication
2 is a task whose processing is completed by exchanging a plurality of data with the corresponding task processing 64 of the personal computer 13. When the control program 7 starts the business process 62 by pressing the function key F2, the business process 62 does not register the transmission request to the personal computer 13 after, for example, 213 in FIG. The communication processing method is specified using the conversational communication of the processing content shown in FIG. Therefore, even if a transmission request, for example 213, exists in the management area of transmission requests to the personal computer 13 at this time, the data of the business process 62 that uses conversational communication will be transmitted before this data. After this, the business process 62 in the personal computer 11 waits for response data from the personal computer 13. At this time, since the conversation communication processing method is specified, the communication control processing program 8 refuses connection control for data transfer with other than the personal computer 13, so that only data from the personal computer 13 can be received. On the other hand, on PC 13, PC 11
Upon receiving data from the business process 62, the control program 7 starts the corresponding business process 64.
The business process 64 is a business process 62 that uses conversational communication.
Since this is a business that responds to
Data is transmitted to the personal computer 11 by directly controlling the communication control processing program 8 as shown in FIG. 4 without using the average transmission service processing 611 as an intermediary. This data is handed over to the data reception process during the conversational communication process of the personal computer 11 that is waiting for reception, a series of processes is completed, and control is transferred to the control program 7 of each personal computer.

According to this embodiment, when data is transferred from the personal computer 11 to the other personal computers 12 to 14, the data existing in the transmission request management area of each destination personal computer is transferred to one
Since the data is sent one after another, the transfer can be averaged for each destination computer, and it also has the effect of preventing deterioration of the transfer efficiency of the other computer due to a busy state of one computer. Furthermore, business processing that completes the process by performing multiple data conversions is different from the communication method that uses the above-mentioned transmission request management area and transfers data on an average basis to each computer. By directly controlling the communication control processing program 8 within the computer, communication methods for sending and receiving data coexist, and by using these two communication methods properly in each business process, only a series of related data groups can be easily transmitted between computers. This makes it possible to easily construct a personal computer network that realizes pseudo-real-time processing in a single-task processing environment.

Furthermore, since the control program 7 has a structure that allows business processing to be easily added in response to function keys and received data, the application system can be easily expanded.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, in a personal computer network in which data is transferred between multiple personal computers via a single communication path, it is possible to average the data transfer frequency to each personal computer, and it is possible to coexist with averaged transfer. By being able to extract a series of related multiple data without constructing special control means, the communication control method can be simplified.
Pseudo-real-time processing can be easily realized using a personal computer in a single-task processing environment.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is an embodiment of the personal computer network system of the present invention, Figure 2 is a flowchart of the control program of the present invention, Figure 3 A and B are diagrams showing the transmission table and reception buffer, and Figure 4 is a communication diagram. Flowchart of control processing program, Figure 5 A, B,
FIG. 6 is a flowchart of average transmission service processing, FIG. 7 is a flowchart of conversational communication processing, and FIG. 8 is a specific example of a transmission request queue. 3...Bus, 5...Network system, 1
1-14... personal computer, 21-24... interface control unit, 41-44... network controller.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. With each of a plurality of computers connected in parallel to a single bus via a network controller compatible with the computer, and with the right to occupy the bus acquired, each computer can communicate with each computer other than the computer. On the other hand, while sporadic one-way data transmission is performed, conversational one-way data transmission is alternately performed multiple times with a specific computer other than the personal computer, giving priority to the sporadic one-way data transmission. A data communication method in a PC network system in which bidirectional data communication is continuously repeated over a period of time, and when conversational one-way data transmission is performed, a transmission request related to the conversational one-way data transmission is is directly retrieved without going through the FIFO transmit queue, and conversational one-way data transmission is performed for the retrieved transmission request, while sporadic one-way data transmission is permitted.
From each of the FIFO transmission queues corresponding to sporadic one-way data transmission destinations, the transmission requests that are registered in advance in the order of request generation in the FIFO transmission queues are cyclically and sequentially retrieved between the FIFO transmission queues. A data communication method in a personal computer network system in which sporadic one-way data transmission is performed in response to a transmission request.