Programmable interface for computer system peripheral circuit card

Claim 1

A programmable interface for use in a peripheral circuit card in a computer system for interfacing between said peripheral circuit card and a communications bus in said computer system, said peripheral circuit card having configuration registers for receiving from said computer system via said communications bus various characteristics of said peripheral circuit card, said peripheral circuit card further having at least one application circuit chip thereon, said characteristics including an address pointer for said at least one chip, said programmable interface being capable of being programmed by a user prior to assembling said interface into said peripheral circuit card, said programmable interface comprising: address input means for supplying address signals to said interface from said communications bus; data input means for supplying data signals to said interface from said communications bus; mask means for storing a plurality of alternate user-definable address ranges for each of said at least one application circuit chip, said mask means having mask output means and being an erasable programmable read-only memory capable of being programmed by a user prior to assembling said interface into said peripheral circuit card; activation means programmable by a user prior to assembling said interface into said peripheral circuit card, said user-programmable activation means being a programmable logic array, for reading said address pointer from said configuration registers for activating that one of said plurality of address ranges stored in said programmable mask means which corresponds to said address pointer from said configuration registers; comparator means having first and second inputs and an output, said mask output means being coupled to said first input of said comparator means; means for applying said address signals to said second input of said comparator means; and means connected to said output of said comparator means for generating an enable signal to enable said at least one application circuit chip to act on said data signals when said output of said comparator means indicates that said address signals match said mask; whereby: said programmable interface is capable of being programmed by programming said user-programmable mask means to store said at least one address range, thereby preparing said interface for assembling into said peripheral circuit card.