Apparatus for generating and sending a serial data packet for controlling a network of single point I/O devices

Claim 1

A transmitter module for transferring data between a microprocessor based device and a network of I/O repeater modules over a synchronous serial communications network, said transmitter module comprising: (A) a buffer register coupled to a data bus in said microprocessor based device, said buffer register for storing data bits generated by said microprocessor based device; (B) an oscillator for generating a clock pulse and a clock rate for said synchronous serial communications network; (C) counter/decoder means for generating a shift/load line based on said clock rate and a data packet length based on the total number of said repeater modules connected to said synchronous serial communications network; (D) a first shift register coupled to said buffer register, said first shift register for storing said data bits coupled from said buffer register and for converting said data bits into a first serial data packet, said conversion at a rate controlled by said shift/load line; (E) a second shift register for receiving said first serial data from said first shift register, said second shift register for inserting an input sync byte and an output sync byte in series with said first serial data packet to produce a second serial data packet synchronized with said shift/load line; and (F) wherein said second serial data packet is coupled to said synchronous serial communications network for transmission to said I/O repeater modules.