JPH0784688A - Device time-out control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the efficiency of I/O operation between an electronic computer and a device by applying a proper time-out value from the device side to the system side in time-out processing for the I/O operation. CONSTITUTION:A system equipment 100 and a device 200 provided with a time-out value setting control circuit 220, a ground circuit, a microprogram having a time-out value, etc., are mutually connected through a data bus 300, and in both the cases of power supply ON and OFF of the device 200, a time-out value is transmitted from the device 200 to the system equipment 100 through the data bus 300, so that the system 100 executes proper time-out processing for the device 200.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic computer, and more particularly to a technique effectively applied to a device control technique for connecting to a general-purpose interface of a personal computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in an electronic computer such as a personal computer, an initial diagnostic program sets a timeout value for each device in an empty area of a basic memory when the system is started up. In this method, since there are various devices connected to the general-purpose interface of the electronic computer, if the electronic computer side attempts to perform the time-out control, appropriate time-out error processing may not be possible.

Further, in order to perform time-out control with an appropriate value, it is necessary to set an optimum time-out value for the device in a driver which is a control program corresponding to the device on the electronic computer side. The processing inside the electronic computer becomes complicated.

For example, when a printer, which is a device, is connected to a personal computer, the following phenomenon may occur.

That is, when the printer is a dot impact printer, the personal computer transmits print data for each line unit, and the printer side returns a command notifying the completion of printing for each line printing to the personal computer.

If the printer is a page printer,
The personal computer can transmit print data in units of a plurality of pages, and the printer side also returns a command to notify the completion of printing when printing of a plurality of pages is completed.

By the way, the driver of the personal computer monitors the response of the print completion command for a certain period of time after the print data is transmitted, and if there is no reply of the print completion command, performs a timeout error process. For example,
When the monitoring time of the print completion command is 10 seconds, it can be said that the dot impact printer has sufficient time for 1-line printing, but it can be said that 10 seconds is short for printing a plurality of pages in the page printer. In this case, printing may be interrupted due to a timeout during printing.

Further, when the monitoring time is set to 3 minutes, it takes a long time for error processing when a failure actually occurs in the dot impact printer.

Therefore, if an appropriate timeout value is not set, a problem occurs, and in order to set an appropriate timeout value, it is necessary to incorporate a device-specific driver or manually set the timeout value. However, the work is complicated.

[0010]

By the way, in the prior art as described above, there are many kinds of devices connected to the general-purpose interface of the electronic computer, and each device has a different timeout value. However, there is a disadvantage that the timeout process of the device becomes complicated.

Further, there is a problem that the timeout value varies depending on the type of device, and the timeout occurs even though the data transfer is not completed, which causes a malfunction of the device.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to enable a computer to acquire a timeout value peculiar to a device connected by a general-purpose interface from the device, so that the device efficiently performs input / output operations between the computer and the device. It is to provide a timeout control method.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[0014]

Among the inventions disclosed in the present application, a brief description will be given to the outline of typical ones.
It is as follows.

That is, the device timeout control method according to claim 1 has a computer having a general-purpose interface and a device connected to the general-purpose interface, and performs a timeout control in input / output operation between the computer and the device. This is a timeout control method, which has a timeout value in the device and transmits the timeout value to the electronic computer.

A device timeout control method according to a second aspect of the invention includes a timeout value setting means for setting a timeout value in the device and a microprogram having a timeout value of the device, and when the device is powered off, the device Uses a timeout value setting means to transmit a timeout value corresponding to the device to the data line of the general-purpose interface, and when the device is powered on, the timeout value is transmitted from the microprogram to the computer. .

[0017]

According to the device time-out control method described above, when the power of the device is turned off, the time-out value setting means outputs an appropriate time-out value on the data line, and the electronic computer has a general-purpose interface to which the device is connected. Data is read, and in the subsequent operation, this value is set in an appropriate empty area of the basic memory so that it can be used as the maximum timeout value. After that, the driver corresponding to this device uses this value as the maximum timeout value and controls the timeout of the device.

On the other hand, when the power of the device is turned on, the microprogram on the device side outputs an appropriate timeout value on the data line, and the computer reads the data of the general-purpose interface to which the device is connected, as in the above case. , In the subsequent operation, this value is set in an appropriate free area of the basic memory so that it can be used as the maximum value of timeout. After that, the driver corresponding to this device uses this value as the maximum timeout value.

By the method as described above, the electronic computer can fetch the data which is the timeout value from the device side and control the timeout of the device.

[0020]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a device timeout control system according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a schematic explanatory diagram showing interface control between a system unit and a device in this embodiment.

First, the configuration of the device timeout control system of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

The device time-out control system of this embodiment is a device time-out control system for performing time-out control in input / output operations between an electronic computer and a device, and is a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a system unit) which is an electronic computer. Note) 100 and a device 200 such as a printer.

The system unit 100 includes a system unit interface controller 110, a ROM 120, a basic memory 130, a microprocessor 140, etc.
Initial diagnosis is performed by the initial diagnosis program stored in the OM 120, and the result of the initial diagnosis is stored in the basic memory 130.
Stored in.

System device interface controller 110
Is the interface control circuit 111 as shown in FIG.
And a pull-up resistor 112, and the pull-up resistor 112 pulls up the data lines 301 to 308,
The interface control circuit 111 controls the control bus 320 and the data lines 301 to 308. The system device interface controller 110 also provides a ground line 310.

When the device 200 has already been powered on and started up, the initial diagnosis program issues a command requesting a timeout value to the device 200, and sets the value returned by the device 200 as the timeout value. The device 200 side supports a command that returns a timeout value to the system device 100 side.

The device 200 includes a device interface controller 210, a timeout value setting control circuit (timeout value setting means) 220, a ROM 230 for storing a microprogram, and a microprocessor 240.
2, a ground circuit (timeout value setting means: FIG. 2) 250 in the time-out value setting control circuit 220, a data bus 260, a ground line 270, and the like, and an interface with the system unit 100 for the device interface control unit 210 and time-out. Value setting control circuit 22
Through 0.

The device interface controller 210 is
It is controlled by a microprogram in ROM 230 using microprocessor 240.

The ground circuit 250 includes data lines (data lines) 301, 303, 305, 307 as shown in FIG.
Is a grounding circuit for grounding the device to the ground. The device 200 has a function of grounding ground when the power supply of the device 200 is off and not grounding when the power supply of the device 200 is on.

The system unit 100 and the device 200 are
The data lines 3001 to 3013 are connected by a data bus 300, a ground line 310, and a control bus 320, respectively.
The management of the data bus 300 and the control bus 320 constituted by 308 is performed by the system device interface control unit 110 in the system device 100, and by the device interface control unit 210 and the timeout value setting control circuit 220 in the device 200.

The eight data lines 301 to 308, when defined as 2 ^{0-2 7} bits of data in the reverse order from the data line 308, the timeout value is assumed to be output in seconds on the data lines, the embodiment Then, by using 8 data lines, 0 to 254 seconds (00h
~ FEh: h indicates a hexadecimal number), it is possible to set 255 kinds of timeout values.

When all eight data lines are at high level (FFh), that is, when the ground circuit 250 does not ground the ground, it is considered that the timeout value setting control circuit 220 does not exist and is treated as invalid data. The time-out value stored in advance in the ROM 230 is returned by the time-out value request command of the system device 100.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described first when the device 200 is powered off.

[0034] Incidentally, when the power supply device 200 is off, the time-out value setting control circuit 220, 2 ⁰ bit of the data by the ground circuit 250, 2 ² bits,
The 2 ⁴ bits and ²⁶ bits are grounded and the data lines 301 to 308 have a timeout value of 85 seconds (55 h).

First, the ROM 120 of the system unit 100
The initial diagnostic program stored in the system unit 1
The data lines 301 to 308 are read during the initial diagnosis of 00, and the read values are stored in the basic memory 130 of the system device 100.

After completion of the initial diagnosis, the device 200
The driver of the system device 100 corresponding to
That is, 85 seconds is regarded as the maximum time-out value, and the time-out control of the corresponding device 200 is performed.

Next, the time-out control method when the power of the device 200 is turned on will be described below.

It should be noted, when the power supply device 200 is on, 2 ⁰ bit of the data by the ground circuit 250, 2 ²
Bit, 2 ^{of 4} bits, the data lines 301 to 308 2 ⁶ bits becomes ground ungrounded are all become controllable by the device interface control section 210, 85 seconds in the microprogram is set in advance.

Next, the device 200, immediately after the power is turned on,
Alternatively, when the system unit 100 requests the acquisition of the timeout value by operating the control signal on the control bus 320, that is, issuing the timeout value acquisition command, the timeout value is set on the data lines 301 to 308 by the microprogram on the device 200 side. Output to.

Then, the initial diagnosis program of the system unit 100 uses the data line 301 during the system initial diagnosis.
~ 308 is read, and the read value is read by the system unit 10
0 in the basic memory 130.

After that, the system unit 100 operates the control signal on the control bus 320 to notify the device 200 of the completion of the acquisition of the timeout value. In the device 200, the microprogram monitors the control signal, and the system unit 1
When the completion signal of the timeout value acquisition is detected from 00, the output of the timeout value is stopped.

Then, the driver corresponding to the device 200 on the basic memory 130 regards the value stored in the system unit 100 as the maximum value of the timeout and controls the corresponding device 200.

Therefore, according to the device timeout control method of this embodiment, the timeout value setting control circuit 22
0, the ground circuit 250, and the time-out value in the microprogram, the time-out value is supplied from the device 200 side via the data bus 300 regardless of whether the power supply of the device 200 is on or off.
And the system device 100 can perform an appropriate time-out process for the device 200.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the embodiments, the invention is not limited to the embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Needless to say.

For example, although the system apparatus of the above-described embodiment has been described as a personal computer, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but is widely applicable to workstations and the like.

Further, although the device has been described as a printer device, the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, and can be widely applied to a floppy disk drive device, a magnetic disk device and the like.

Further, regarding the timeout value, 85
Although the case of seconds has been described, this value can be changed according to the type of device, and the device ground circuit and ROM
An appropriate value can be set by changing the microprogram in.

[0048]

Among the inventions disclosed in the present application,
The effects obtained by the representative ones are briefly described as follows.

That is, according to the present invention, an appropriate time-out value can be automatically set in the electronic computer only by connecting the device to the electronic computer, which allows the electronic computer to perform input / output operations with the device. , Appropriate error handling at timeout regardless of device type can be performed.

As a result, the electronic computer can efficiently perform the input / output operation with the device without making a mistake in the state of each device and causing a device failure when performing the device timeout process.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a device control system showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic explanatory diagram showing interface control between a system device and a device according to the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 system device 110 system device interface control unit 111 interface control circuit 112 pull-up resistor 120 ROM 130 basic memory 140 microprocessor 200 device 210 device interface control unit 220 timeout value setting control circuit (timeout value setting means) 230 ROM 240 microprocessor 250 Ground circuit (timeout value setting means) 260 data bus 270 ground line 300 data bus 301 to 308 data line (data line) 310 ground line 320 control bus

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A device time-out control method, comprising: a computer having a general-purpose interface; and a device connected to the general-purpose interface, wherein the device time-out control method performs time-out control in input / output operations between the computer and the device. A device timeout control method, wherein a device has a timeout value and the timeout value is transmitted to the electronic computer. 2. A time-out value setting means for setting a time-out value in the device, and a microprogram having a time-out value of the device. When the device is powered off, the device is provided with data of the general-purpose interface. A timeout value corresponding to the device for the line is transmitted to the electronic computer by the timeout value setting means, and when the device is powered on, the timeout value is transmitted to the electronic computer from the microprogram. The device timeout control method according to claim 1, wherein