Message generating communication apparatus having a message preamble format allowing parts of certain messages to be ignored

摘要

A communication system has a first node which transmits on a data bus messages each having a preamble having a predetermined format including a message type and the message length, and a plurality of second nodes receiving messages from the data bus and including elements which can determine that the preamble in each message has the predetermined format. The preamble is particularly useful for allowing the second nodes to quickly detect messages not directed to those nodes of which the elements form a part, allowing the node to ignore the remainder of the message. This allows the individual nodes to exclude the message interpretation for detecting message directed to them, from their processing tasks thereby improving the effective processing speed of the network.