Multi-media serial line switching adapter for parallel networks and heterogeneous and homologous computer system

摘要

A generic network device includes a serial line switching apparatus for performing either parallel or serial communications amongst multiple nodes over switching networks. An aspect includes is the adaptation of standard and proprietary serial interfaces using either optical or electrical transmission media to interface to the parallel switch. The converted serial data is routed to the selected destination through the parallel switch network, where it is received and converted back into a serial optical or electrical interface/protocol. Thus, the combination of the switching adapter and an ALLNODE parallel switching network make it feasible for serial message data to be switched and routed to various destinations. A a parallel electrical switch can efficiently handle either optical or electrical serial data and utilize information via wireless gateways to provide the features required for parallel processing and "farm" approaches, such as low latency, high bandwidth, scalability, fault tolerance, and high reliability. In addition, further flexibility is provided which permits the switching adapter to be personalized to support the any one of a number of standard and proprietary serial protocols. A personalization PROM specifies the particular serial protocol that each individual adapter is to support. The parallel switching network becomes a flexible media that interconnects and allows different serial protocols to communicate with each other; i.e., any number of different serial protocols can interface with the same parallel switch network. This allows every node of the parallel system to send and receive messages using its own native protocol. However, a node is not restricted to communicating only with others nodes using the same protocol, but it can communicate with any of the other nodes regardless of the serial protocol they use. The switch enables generic networks with heterogeneous and/or homologous nodes as a computer system. It can replace LANs and WANs and provide high speed cluster switching. Applications include parallel processing with existing computers, and features of multiple processor computer system which transfer multi- media information from one or many senders to one or many receivers, useful in teaching and many other applications. The nodes of an asynchronous computer system are connected asynchronously in a non- blocking by search manner with connections for set up at 2 cycles per cascaded node and message transfer continues at maximum media transfer speed.