JAY WILLIAM SMITH
Landscape Architect in Raleigh, NC

5651000, Jul 22, 1997

Apr 27, 1995

8/429452

Nai Po Lee - Chapel Hill NC
Jay Lee Smith - Raleigh NC

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

H04L 12417, H04L 12437

370258

Methods and systems for determining the address of the nearest downstream reconfiguration unit in a dual ring communication system. In a dual ring communication system having a plurality of reconfiguration units one of the reconfiguration units determines if a Reconfiguration Unit Monitor is active on the system. If a Reconfiguration Unit Monitor is not active the reconfiguration unit requests and stores address information from the remaining reconfiguration units in the ring and assembles a ring sequence reconfiguration unit ring map. The reconfiguration unit transmits the reconfiguration unit ring map to the remaining reconfiguration units in the ring. Reconfiguration units receive the reconfiguration unit ring map from the Reconfiguration Unit Monitor and extracts the address of the nearest downstream reconfiguration unit from the reconfiguration unit ring map.

5132962, Jul 21, 1992

Dec 20, 1990

7/631816

Robert B. Hobgood - Raleigh NC
Jay L. Smith - Raleigh NC
Bradley S. Trubey - Raleigh NC
Anthony D. Walker - Durham NC

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 1120, H04J 314, H04L 1226

370 161

A multiport access and reconfiguration unit for use in a dual token ring network is provided with three adapters which in the presence of an internal fault establishes an isolated token ring which includes one of the adapters and the associated ports, to test and bypass the fault and operate the reconfigured ring with the other two adapters.

5539725, Jul 23, 1996

Jan 31, 1995

8/381694

Bradley S. Trubey - Raleigh NC
Anthony D. Walker - Rougemont NC
Jay L. Smith - Raleigh NC
Kenneth T. Wilson - Raleigh NC
David E. Bartolini - Dudley MA

International Business Machines Corp. - Armonk NY
3COM Corporation - Santa Clara CA

H04J 314

370 13

In a serial network which includes a hub having a plurality of ports each for attaching one or more stations a mechanism for correlating a list of stations developed in a poll cycle to the ports and for detecting and resolving ambiguities when the number of stations does not equal the number of active ports. The mechanism uses a combination of input and output buffers under control of the programmed hub processor for developing a list of stations connected to the hub. When the number of stations does not equal the number of active hub ports an upstream buffer is configured to transmit Duplicate Address MAC frames to a single port and the contents of a downstream buffer are used to resolve the ambiguity either on a single transmission or multiple single port transmissions.

5335227, Aug 2, 1994

Dec 20, 1990

7/630720

Jay L. Smith - Raleigh NC
Bradley S. Trubey - Raleigh NC
Anthony D. Walker - Durham NC

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

H04J 316

370 951

A plurality of access ports in a serial communication network are bracketed by a pair of adapters each of which is connected to a programmed processor. The adapters have unique identities and take part in a polling sequence with any active connected devices each of which have unique network identities. The processor maintains active port status information and correlates the identities of the devices received between the identities of the adapters in a polling sequence to the active port status information which indicates the specific port to which each active device is attached.

5463634, Oct 31, 1995

Feb 21, 1995

8/391303

Jay L. Smith - Raleigh NC
Bradley S. Trubey - Raleigh NC
Anthony D. Walker - Durham NC

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 1100, H04J 116

371 206

Stations on a faulty token ring which includes a control adapter are removed one at a time starting with the most down stream station from the control adapter or of a station up stream from the last station is known to be good all of the stations down stream from that station are removed and the one at a time removal starts with the known good station. The control adapter transmits special beacon frames during the station removal process and when the removal of a station results in receipt of the special beacon frame at the control adapter, the control program identifies a fault domain which includes the station whose removal caused the special beacon to be received at the control adapter and the station immediately up stream from that station. The stations in the fault domain are selectively subjected tests and removed from the ring when a failure is detected.