System for connecting light waveguide buses and coaxial cable buses

Claim 1

In a system for connecting light waveguide buses and coaxial cable buses operating according to the token passing principle, the coaxial cable buses each being provided with electrical terminal access means for transmitting electrical data signals onto and receiving electrical data signals from the coaxial cable bus, the improvement comprising: an opto-electrical converter disposed between a terminal access means and a light waveguide bus, said converter including: carrier band modem means operatively connected to the terminal access means and having a standardized carrier band interface for producing data signals at said interface according to a predetermined token bus standard; optical transceiver means coupled to the light waveguide bus for converting electrical signals into optical signals and transmitting the optical signals onto the light waveguide bus and for receiving optical signals from the light waveguide bus and converting the optical signals into electrical signals; light waveguide sub-modem means having an interface, operatively coupled to the interface of said carrier band modem means and to said optical transceiver means, for generating electrical signals according to a predetermined optical token bus light waveguide standard and feeding the electrical signals to said optical transceiver means, and for generating electrical data signals according to the predetermined token bus standard from signals conforming to the predetermined optical token bus waveguide standard received from said optical transceiver means; a common sequence controller operatively connected to said carrier band modem means and said light waveguide sub-modem means for controlling functions in said carrier band modem means and said light waveguide sub-modem means; return flow barrier means operatively connected between said optical transceiver means and said light waveguide sub-modem means for preventing received data from the optical transceiver means from re-circulating through said optical transceiver means and the light waveguide bus; and regenerator means operatively connected between said carrier band modem means and said light waveguide sub-modem means and controlled by said sequence controller for regenerating the data signals from said carrier band modem means and said light waveguide sub-modem means.