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Method of sharing memory between an operating system and an application program

  • US 5,673,394 A
  • Filed: 08/30/1993
  • Issued: 09/30/1997
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/31/1990
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A method in a computer system for concurrent access of a plurality of portions of external data loaded by an operating system for an application program, the computer having computer memory, the method comprising:

  • A. the following steps performed by an operating system;

    receiving a request of an application program for access to a plurality of portions of external data;

    initializing a list of pointers with a predefined value, the pointers for pointing to buffers within the computer memory and being accessible by the application program; and

    for each of the plurality of portions of the external data,retrieving the portion of the external data;

    storing the retrieved portion in a buffer; and

    updating a pointer in the list of pointers to point to the buffer containing the retrieved portion; and

    B. the following steps performed by an application program;

    for each pointer in the list of pointers,when the pointer has been updated to point to a buffer containing the retrieved portion, accessing the portion of the external data stored in the buffer pointed to by the updated pointer before the operating system has completed storing all of the portions of the external data in the buffers.

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