A GATEWAY SYSTEM FOR INTERCONNECTING DIFFERENT DATA COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

A gateway system for connecting first and second communication networks has first and second network end nodes and a protocol converter. The gateway system operates to provide input-output services of both network protocols to users of both networks in communicating through the gateway system. The gateway system employs associated complement protocol circuits in the end nodes and the protocol converter to provide these services. An efficient technique for generating the complement protocol of a first network is to prune finite state machines representing the operation of the second network protocol to provide the services of the second protocol that are not provided by the first protocol. The complement protocol circuits for the second network are then constructed based on the pruned finite state machines representing the operation of the first protocol.