Method and apparatus for extending the connection capability of a communication system.

摘要

The method and apparatus allow the connection capability of a communication controller to be extended. The communication controller comprises a central control unit CCU 10 running a network control program NCP stored in a memory 12 having a direct memory access facility through DMA bus 25. The input/output bus 18 of the communication controller and DMA bus are connected to line adapters and channel adapters and a controller extension 41 through a coupler 32 which allows additional adapters 30 to be connected to the controller. At initialization a table is built into a coupler memory which is then used in steady state mode for controlling the transmission of the messages to the additional users and the reception of the messages from the additional users by improving the buffer unchaining and chaining processes into the NCP memory 12. <IMAGE>