Bus monitor with time stamp means for independently capturing and correlating events

Claim 1

In a monitoring means for use in a computer system for selectively detecting and recording conditions at selected points within the system during operation, including means connected from a first plurality of selected points within the system and responsive to selected conditions occurring at each of the first points for generating corresponding trigger outputs representing the occurrence of the selected conditions at the first points, silo bank means having a plurality of sub-silo means for storing data representing the conditions present at a different second plurality of selected points within the system, each sub-silo means corresponding to one of the second points and having a first sub-silo segment with data inputs connected from the corresponding second point and a write control input for controlling the writing of data from the corresponding second point into the first sub-silo segment of the sub-silo means, and silo control means for providing write control signals to each sub-silo means of the plurality of sub-silo means, wherein each of the second points is associated with corresponding ones of the trigger outputs, and the silo control means is responsive to the trigger outputs for selectively controlling the recording of data conditions at selected second points within the system concurrently and in parallel by providing corresponding write control signals to the sub-silo means being responsive to a corresponding write control signal from the silo control means for writing the data from the corresponding second point connected to the data input of the first sub-silo segment into the first sub-silo segment of the sub-silo means, means for correlating the data recorded in the silo segments, comprising: time stamp means responsive to each of the trigger outputs for generating time stamp counts representing the relative times of occurrence of the trigger outputs causing the data to be recorded in the silo segments at a different time, and in each sub-silo means of the silo bank means, a second sub-silo segment having data inputs connected from the time stamp means and responsive to the corresponding write control signal from the silo control means for recording the time stamp count in association with the corresponding data recorded from the corresponding second point, each sub-silo means being responsive to the corresponding write control signal from the silo control means for writing the time stamp count from the time stamp means into the second sub-silo segment of the sub-silo means, wherein each condition recorded in the silo bank means as the result of a trigger output has associated with it the time stamp count representing the relative time of occurrence of the trigger output.