COMPUTER HARDWARE EXECUTIVE

The computer hardware executive is a special purpose associative processor hich interfaces to the memory bus of a digital computer to provide high-speed execution of executive functions. These functions include task registration, task synchronization, normal, time-dependent and time-critical event registration and triggering, hierarchical event-to-semaphore translation, and buffer allocation. The programmer invokes an executive function by accessing the address in the hose computer address space dedicated to that function. The data written to or read from that address is the function operated or result, respectively. The hardware executive maintains task and event tables internally within its associative memory. The memory is organized such that the same field bit position of all table entries is accessed in parallel within a microinstruction cycle. Searches are performed by sequencing through the bit positions of interest. The computer hardware executive also contains an internal clock for comparison against time-dependent and time-critical event registrations. The executive function algorithms are executed by an internal microprogram.