| 摘要 |
A processing unit or device connectable to a data communications network has a data carrier reader operable to read a network address from a hand insertable data carrier, wherein the processing unit is operable to use the network address from the data carrier for communicating via the data communications network. A processing unit (24) forming part of a computer system may be readily replaced by a replacement processing unit, and arranged to continue communicating via the communications network, by using the same network address as the original processing unit read from the data carrier. The data carrier (54) may be a Smart or SIM card or the like. A method of operating a computer system may therefore comprise connecting the processing unit (24) to a communications network (2), loading a data carrier (54) into the data carrier reader (40), arranging for the network address to be read from the data carrier, and arranging for the processing unit to use the network address read from the data carrier to communicate via the network (2). In the event that the data carrier (54) is not present, an address may be read from a non-volatile RAM (46). An alternate embodiment stores the network address from the data carrier (54) in a register (100) setting a register flag (102) to indicate the presence in the register of a network address.
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