Peripheral sharing system using a bus bridge to emulate peripherals on a first bus to a host on a second bus

摘要

A dummy terminal connects two buses. Each bus has connected to it a host and at least one terminal. In a specific embodiment, the buses are implemented using the Universal Serial Bus (USB). Connected to each USB is one and only one host and at least one terminal. Examples of terminals include hard disk drives, floppy disk drives, keyboards, scanners, and printers. The dummy terminal functions as a bridge between the two buses and emulates a terminal of one bus system for a host computer of another bus system. The dummy terminal includes an interface unit for each bus system, data storage units to store transmission and received data for each host computer, and a communication control unit to control communication. The dummy terminal operates by initially responding to a line check signal from a first host computer. In response, the communication control unit transmits data "OK" to the first computer to indicate normal conditions. The first host computer then sends a terminal- identification recognition signal. The dummy terminal responds by transmitting terminal identification information representing a terminal on the other bus system to the first host computer. The first host computer then treats the dummy terminal as if it were the selected terminal on the other bus.