Combined connectionless and connection-oriented network control system

摘要

A network control system controls the receipt and transmission of messages at one node of a communication network which includes a plurality of nodes coupled together on a bi-directional bus. Both short messages having a length less than a predetermined number of bytes and long messages having a length greater than the predetermined number of bytes may be conveyed between nodes. The network control system incudes a connectionless network control portion for controlling the receipt and transmission of the short messages and a connection-oriented network control portion for controlling the receipt and transmission of the long messages including establishing a connection between its node and another node before a long message is transmitted.