Data corruption avoidance on a backplane bus adapted to receive bus controller cards of different types

摘要

A backplane having a bus is adapted to receive two bus controller cards of the same model. One of the bus controller cards becomes a master card and the other becomes a servant card. Each of the bus controller cards has a bank of switches that may be set to compatible positions. The positions of the switches on the two bus controller cards are compared, and the servant card is disconnected if its switches are not set to positions compatible with those of the master card. The backplane also may be adapted to receive different models of bus controller cards. Where two different models of bus controller cards are present on the backplane at the same time, one of the cards is not connected to the bus in order to prevent corruption or loss of data traveling over the bus.