Universal driver server

• US 7,089,562 B1
• Filed: 05/04/2000
• Issued: 08/08/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kanevsky, Dimitri, Zlatsin, Alexander
• Primary Examiner(s): Thomson, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): CAO, DIEM K
• Application Number:
  US09/564,619
• Time in Patent Office: 2,287 Days
• Field of Search: 709200-203, 709310-319, 709217-219, 709230-231, 709/246, 707/500, 719310-320, 719328-330, 717137-144, 717168-178, 717/136
• US Class Current: 719/313
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers

Abstract

This invention involves using an alternative driver that is located in a specified server on the Internet. For example, a person could take a floppy disk that is not compatible with their computer and transform it over the Internet through an alternate compatible driver. In order to do this, a special universal bit reader is located within the server. A second variant is that a bit reader would be located in a user'"'"'s computer and it would be connected to a global server. So, all the files could be accessed through the Internet. This would allow to read and write data from/to a disk that was formatted on a different operational system. In order to solve a problem how to run applications that are not compatible to the operational system on a computer where this disk was inserted, the invention teaches the following approach. A universal driver on the server uses a program that looks for similar applications in a database server that contains a database of applications from different operational systems. The universal driver can identify what programs in the application are needed either reading names of programs on the disk or it can read a special table in which applications point to programs in different operational systems.

Claims

1. A method of converting an application formatted for a first operating systems for use on a user computer having a second operating system, the method comprising the steps of:

inserting a disk into the user computer, said disk including a given application having a plurality of programs formatted for the first operating system and being incompatible with the second operating system;

providing the user computer with a universal bit reader;

using the bit reader to read the bits of the given application;

sending the bits read by the universal bit reader to a universal web server via the internet;

providing the universal web server with (i) a universal bit reader, (ii) an applications database including a plurality of applications in a plurality of formats compatible with a plurality of operating systems, (iii) an OS database having a plurality of operating systems, and (iv) a table identifying a plurality of applications pointing to programs formatted in different operating systems;

the web server

a) sending the bits from the user computer to an operating system identifier to identify the first operating system;

b) activating an operating system, corresponding to said first operating system, from the OS database;

c) activating a driver having said corresponding operating system;

d) reading data from and writing data to said disk;

e) running the given application on the disk using said corresponding operating system to generate an output file, including the step of connecting data from the given application to the activated driver;

f) processing the data from the given applications through a reader information unit in the activated drives to read the data;

g) after the data are read, sending the data to an accessor;

h) reformatting said output file to be compatible with the second operating system;

i) sending the reformatted output file to the user computer;

j) searching the applications database for one or more programs of the given application in a format or formats compatible with the second operating system, including the steps of

1) reading the names of the programs in the given application,

2) searching the applications database for programs therein having the read names,

3) for each compatible program that is found, downloading the found compatible program to the user computer, and

4) searching said table for said given application; and

if the given application is found in the table, using said application in said table to point to a copy of the given application in a format compatible with the second operating system; and

k) downloading to the user computer predetermined script applications, said script applications being written for one operating system but being operable by any one of a multitude of different operating systems.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

the user computer is a personal computer having a processing unit, a memory and a disk reader;

the web server is provided with a module for searching the applications database for said one or more programs;

said script applications are written as pearl script and represented as text files; and

said given application is a computer game.