| 摘要 |
The present invention efficiently couples two peripherals to an electronic device (e.g., a computer) through the same port. This allows additional input and output features to be implemented without taking up valuable port. In addition, the present invention provides backward compatibility by allowing existing devices currently being used by consumers to interface two peripherals through the same port without requiring internal hardware modifications to the existing device. In one embodiment of the present invention, a first I/O peripheral (e.g., a mouse) is coupled to share its exiting port with a second I/O peripheral which has defined I/O functions (e.g., multimedia function controls) and a port sharing feature. The priority of data transmission from these peripherals to the host computer is set to avoid data collision. The characteristics of the data stream of one of these peripherals are efficiently made use of to design a scheme to set the priority of data transmission along a common data line to a common port. In this way, an additional peripheral may be used to control the function of the electronic device without the need to connect such peripheral to its own separate port on the electronic device. In another aspect of the present invention, the hardware connection to facilitate the port sharing function is external of the host electronic device and the second peripheral. In this way, no hardware modification to the host electronic device or the first peripheral would be required. In another embodiment of the present invention, a wireless peripheral transmits data to a receiver located in a wired peripheral connected to the electronic device through a single port. Data from the wireless peripheral and data from the wired peripheral are both coupled to a microcontroller. The microcontroller arbitrates between the data received from the two peripherals and sends the selected data to the electronic device through the port to which the wired peripheral is connected. |
