System for allowing a supervisory module to obtain alarm and status information from at least one supervised module without having to specify physical addresses

摘要

In a system having a supervisory module and at least one supervised module mounted on separate circuit cards in a common housing, the supervised module has a memory unit in which alarm and status information is stored by a processing unit, which gathers the alarm and status information from other integrated circuits in the supervised module. The supervisory module obtains the alarm and status information from the memory unit, without having to specify the physical addresses of integrated circuits and registers in the supervised module. The processing unit in the supervised module also makes register settings in the integrated circuits in the supervised module, on behalf of the supervisory module.