Modular input/output system for supercomputers

Claim 1

An input/output module for an input/output system for sue in interfacing between a high speed vector processing supercomputer and a plurality of peripheral devices, comprising: a) channel adapter means including a plurality of channel adapters each connected for interfacing with one of the plurality of peripheral devices wherein each of the peripheral devices has a peripheral data format, and each of said channel adapters of said channel adapter means further adapted for performing format conversion on data between said peripheral data format and a format required by the input/output system; b) high speed data channel means for bidirectional coupling with the supercomputer and for transmitting and receiving data; c) memory buffer means including a plurality of memory buffers each connected for storing data and each of said plurality of memory buffers being coupled in a dedicated connection to one of said channel adapters; d) multiplexer means coupled between said high speed data channel means and said plurality of memory buffers of said memory buffer means for transferring data to said high speed data channel means; e) I/O processor means connected to said high speed data channel means, said memory buffers means and said channel adaptor means for controlling data transfers between said high speed data channel means and said memory buffer means and further connected for controlling data transfers between said channel adapter means and said memory buffer means by permitting said channel adapter means and said high speed data channel means access to said memory buffer means on alternate memory access cycles; and f) said I/O processor means further connected for allowing each of said channel adapters to access one of the plurality of peripheral devices to which it is attached simultaneous with the accessing of the memory buffers by the high speed channel.