Digital communication system

Claim 1

IN A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR TRANSFERRING INFORMATION BETWEEN DATA HANDLING DEVICES AT REMOTE SITES AND DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT AT A CENTRAL SITE, THE COMBINATION COMPRISING: A PLURALITY OF DATA HANDLING DEVICES; A DIGITAL COMPUTER COMPRISING MEANS FOR STORING DIGITAL SIGNALS, CERTAIN OF SAID SIGNALS REPRESENTING DATA AND OTHERS REPRESENTING INDEX WORDS, REGISTER MEANS ASSOCIATED WITH SAID STORAGE MEANS, AND A PLURALITY OF COMMUNICATION CHANNELS ADAPTED TO CONVEY DATA, ADDRESS REPRESENTING SIGNALS AND CONTROL SIGNALS BETWEEN SAID COMPUTER AND SAID PLURALITY OF DATA HANDLING DEVICES; PRIORITY DETERMINING MEANS IN SAID COMPUTER FOR RECOGNIZING SAID CONTROL SIGNALS FROM SAID CHANNELS, SO THAT SAID DATA AND ADDRESS REPRESENTING SIGNALS CAN BE TRANSMITTED ONLY ON THE PARTICULAR CHANNEL HAVING THE HIGHER PRIORITY AT A GIVEN TIME; MEANS RESPONSIVE TO THE OUTPUT OF SAID PRIORITY DETERMINING MEANS FOR TRANSFERRING SAID ADDRESS REPRESENTING SIGNALS FROM THE DEVICE ON SAID PARTICULAR CHANNEL TO SAID REGISTER MEANS; MEMORY SELECTION MEANS RESPONSIVE TO THE PRESENCE OF SAID ADDRESS REPRESENTING SIGNALS IN SAID REGISTER MEANS FOR EXTRACTING THE INDEX WORD FROM THE LOCATION IN SAID STORAGE MEANS SPECIFIED BY SAID ADDRESS SIGNALS; AND MEANS INCLUDING SAID MEMORY SELECTION MEANS FOR SUBSEQUENTLY STORING SAID DATA SIGNALS AT THE LOCATION SPECIFIED BY SAID INDEX WORD.