METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN IEEE 1394 DEVICES AND DEVICES OPERATING UNDER A DIFFERENT BUS NETWORK PROTOCOL

摘要

A protocol converter (20) appropriately converts communications directed from a device (22, 24, 28) operating under a first protocol to a device operating a second protocol (36, 38, 40, 42). The converter (20) includes a programmable microprocessor which manipulates communications into the proper format for the receiving device (22, 24, 28, 36, 38, 40, 42) and then transmits the manipulated communications to the receiving device (22, 24, 28, 36, 38, 40, 42). Preferably, the converter (20) is coupled (30, 32) between two bus structures (44, 46) of different protocols, where one of the bus structures is an IEEE 1394 bus structure (44). Alternatively, the converter and the devices are all coupled to the same IEEE 1394 bus structure. A protocol conversion program is preferably stored within a read only memory (ROM) and used by the microprocessor to perform the appropriate conversions.