Operating system-independent computing system user feedback
Contents
1. 308 and 312 316 of FIG 3A The monitors 500 506 are described in more detail in the com monly assigned U S patent application entitled DIGITAL FEEDBACK DISPLAY PANEL AND SUPPORTING SOFTWARE FOR A COMPUTER USER previously incorporated herein 0027 Referring to FIG 6 exemplary application level interfacing and system level interfacing for the user feed back mechanism 200 is shown Application level interfacing relates to an application 602 or 604 communicating with the mini LCD 204 System level interfacing relates to a client 612 communicating with the mini LCD 204 An LCD interface 600 is shown coupled to the application 602 the application 604 and an LCD interface driver 118 In a disclosed embodiment communication to the mini LCD 204 in the form of system level interfacing overrides communi cation to the mini LCD 204 in the form of application level interfacing The application 602 or 604 may for example be a debug application to track the operating conditions detected by the user feedback mechanism 200 In a disclosed embodiment the LCD interface 600 is a component object model COM based interface called by the application 602 or 604 for communication with the mini LCD 204 The techniques for a COM interface to communicate with an application are well known in the art COM is a well known paradigm for interaction among software components The LCD interface 600 is used to provide the applications 602 and 604 an applicatio2. lock up of the operating system 100 In step 312 the operating condition is an email notification In step 314 the operating condition is an Internet message In step 316 the operating condition is the atomic time The computing system may detect atomic time from a network server during US 2001 0007140 Al an Internet connection In a disclosed embodiment a default mode of the user feedback mechanism 200 is a clock mode in which atomic time is displayed on the mini LCD 204 Compared to a typical operating system based clock of a computer system the clock mode of the user feedback mechanism 200 runs independently of the operating system 100 and provides a more accurate clock Even if a user does not initiate connection to the Internet every day the user feedback mechanism 200 automatically connects to the Internet each day to ensure the accuracy of its clock This automatic Internet connection feature may be configured by a user to force an Internet connection as many times a day as desired and at whatever times are desired Since an OS based clock is at times not visible on a monitor users have typically relied upon clocks external to their computer systems A user however can view the clock of the user feedback mechanism 200 at any time In step 318 the operating condition is the power state i e sleep mode of the computing system It should be understood that the operating conditions shown in steps 302 318 are illustrative and not
3. or condition related to the operation of the computing system including but not limited to fault conditions of the computing system The term fault condition should be construed to encompass any system condition that may negatively impact a user s experience with the computing system The operating system independent user feedback mechanism 200 includes a mini display or LCD 204 an interface controller 202 a message indicator 208 and a safety button 206 The interface controller 202 is shown coupled to the mini LCD 204 the message indicator 208 and the safety button 206 A user is alerted of operating conditions of the computing system by the mini LCD 204 displaying operating condition messages The mini LCD 204 receives an operating condition signal from the interface controller 202 and then displays a corresponding operating condition message A variety of operating condition signals and operating condition messages may be supported by the user feedback mechanism 200 In addition to displaying operating condition messages the mini LCD 204 may also Jul 5 2001 display instructions to a user for the user to cure the particular operating condition It should be understood that the mini display 204 may be implemented with display technologies other than LCD The message indicator 208 which for example may be implemented as one or more light emitting diodes LEDs is used to indicate messages to a user such as an email message or
4. 19 United States 20010007140A a2 Patent Application Publication ao Pub No US 2001 0007140 Al Landry et al 43 Pub Date Jul 5 2001 54 OPERATING SYSTEM INDEPENDENT COMPUTING SYSTEM USER FEEDBACK MECHANISM 76 Inventors John A Landry Spring TX US Valiuddin Y Ali Houston TX US Ajay Chaturvedi Baltimore MD US Brooks A Rorke Satellite Beach FL US Stacy L Wolff Cypress TX US Kevin L Massaro Houston TX US Correspondence Address AKIN GUMP STRAUSS HAUER amp FELD 711 LOUISIANA STREET SUITE 1900 SOUTH HOUSTON TX 77002 US 21 Appl No 09 771 866 22 Filed Jan 29 2001 Related U S Application Data 63 Continuation of application No 09 478 153 filed on Jan 5 2000 Publication Classification 1 Int CII end GO6F 11 00 NUR arak aana een 714 48 57 ABSTRACT A computing system employs a user feedback mechanism to monitor operating conditions of the computing system and to alert a user to the operating conditions independently of an operating system of the computing system The user feedback mechanism includes a display panel to display operating condition messages to the user and includes a controller to monitor operating condition signals Some examples of operating conditions include a connection state of the computing system to the Internet a connection state of a peripheral device to the computing system a new e mail notification
5. AY TEXT This IOCTL is used to display text for a specified time on the mini LCD CPQLCD CONTROL LED CPQLCD SET CLOCK This IOCTL is used to control the state of the LEDs of the user feedback mechanism This IOCTL is used to set the clock of the user feedback mechanism to a desired time CPQLCD QUERY REVISION This IOCTL is used to obtain a revision number of the mini LCD for identification purposes 0031 As shown by some of the IOCTLs above the driver 118 can be used to dynamically download text or an icon for an application or client In a disclosed embodiment the driver 118 is a Plug n Play driver One potential use of the CPQLCD DEFINE TEXT IOCTL is to define a new font for text during the clock mode of the user feedback mecha nism 200 It should be understood that the driver entry points and IOCTLs disclosed herein are illustrative and not exhaus tive It is noted that the LCD interface 600 enables an application or client component to drive the mini LCD 204 such that an application or client component is not required to communicate directly with the LCD interface driver 118 The LCD interface 600 uses the driver entry points to shield individual applications from having to talk to the LCD interface driver 118 directly 0032 The input output logic 608 includes ACPI logic 210 and a universal asynchronous receiver transmitter UART 606 The ACPI logic 210 is coupled to the system BIOS 102 and to the power supply 214 Inde
6. CT PERIPHERAL DETECT DETECT DEVICE EMAIL ATOMIC CONNECTION ll CONNECTION NOTIFICATION TIME STATE 328 320 COMMUNICATE OPERATING CONDITION TO MINI LCD 324 DISPLAY OPERATING CONDITION MESSAGE 325 GENERATE OPERATING CONDITION DISPLAY COMPLETE SIGNAL 0S OR APPLICATION READ OF OPERATING CONDITION 326 DISPLAY INSTRUCTION TO CURE OPERATING CONDITION Patent Application Publication Jul 5 2001 Sheet 4 of 7 OPERATING CONDITION CURED 332 CLEAR INSTRUCTION FROM MINI LCD 334 INTERNET MESSAGE OR E MAIL NOTIFICATION DETECTED SET MESSAGE INDICATOR UPDATE USER INTERFACE MECHANISM CLOCK AND 05 CLOCK OPERATING CONDITION FEEDBACK PROCESS COMPLETE FIG 3B US 2001 0007140 Al Patent Application Publication Jul 5 2001 Sheet 5 of 7 US 2001 0007140 A1 SAFETY BUTTON PROCESSING Y START ACPI TIMER INITIATE SHUTDOWN OF OS ACPI TIMER 4 EXPIRED RESET ACPI LOGIC SIGNALING POWER SUPPLY TO TURN OFF SAFETY BUTTON PROCESSING COMPLETE FIG 4 US 2001 0007140 Sheet 6 of 7 Jul 5 2001 Patent Application Publication 39V3831NI IdIV YOLINON JOVSSIW LANYILNI 901 9 9H 39V3831NI 39V3H3LNI 5018 50 YOLINOW YOLINOW VWI INIL IIWOLY YOLINOW YOLINOW LANYILNI 391440 008 FINGOW 32 V383LNI 4ISN LN30N3d3UNI SO Patent Appli
7. P may be a time command APP CommandComplete This routine is used to track the last command hat was set for the mini LCD APPTextCmdFinish This routine is used to ensure that a command or the mini LCD is completed SendTextCommands This routine is used to send a text command the mini LCD o ControlLED This routine is used to turn on or turn off an LED of the user feedback mechanism ResetLCD This routine is used to reset the mini LCD The IOCTLs name and description supported by the driver 118 are shown in the table below IOCTL Name IOCTL Description CPQLCD GET CLIENT ID This IOCTL is used to fetch a unique identifier for a client application The dentifier may be used to keep track of any icons downloaded by that client application CPOLCD CLIENT CLEAN UP This IOCTL is used when a client application and the driver no longer needs the services of the mini LCD CPQLCD GET DRIVER INFO This IOCTL is used to obtain the name and version number for the driver CPQLCD CLEAR ICON This IOCTL is used for clearing specific bitmaps no longer needed by the client CPOLCD DEF ICON BMP This IOCTL defines and downloads a bitmap and returns an identification number for the icon to uniquely identify that icon CPQLCD DISPLAY ICON This IOCTL displays an icon identified by the icon identification number DEFINE FONT This IOCTL defines a bitmap for a specific character CPQLCD DISPL
8. advertently crashing or depowering their computer systems thereby risking a loss of data 0007 The operating system monitor audio alerts and LEDs alike have provided little if any feedback to users during critical times for a computer system such as system initialization or power up for example Users tend to ignore or overlook any system information which is quickly flashed on the monitor during power up Users also have difficulty Jul 5 2001 detecting when a computer system is in fact connected to the Internet In the case of a user who frequently moves his or her desktop computer such a user may be forced to check one or more cable connections if the computer does not power up after the computer is relocated Users thus are typically not well informed of the operating conditions or events of computer systems if at all and must resort to contacting the computer manufacturer contacting the Inter net service provider examining the user s manual or exam ining the computer itself when a perceived problem devel ops SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0008 Briefly a computing system employs a user feed back mechanism to monitor a plurality of operating condi tions of the computing system and to alert a user to the plurality of operating conditions independently of an oper ating system of the computing system The user feedback mechanism includes a display panel to display a plurality of operating condition messages to th
9. an Internet message The term Internet message refers to any non email message communicated over the Internet such as messages unique to a particular Internet service provider The safety button 206 is used to signal a power supply 214 to power off the computing system if the computing system is not already powered off by the operating system 100 Processing of the safety button 206 is described in more detail below in connection with FIG 4 0020 The interface controller 202 is further coupled to ACPI logic 210 The ACPI logic 210 which is shown including an ACPI timer 212 is coupled to the power supply 214 The use of the ACPI timer 212 is described below in connection with FIG 4 The arrowed line from the power supply 214 to the user feedback mechanism 200 represents that the user feedback mechanism 200 is powered indepen dently of the rest of the computing system When the user feedback mechanism 200 is powered i e when the user feedback mechanism power cable is plugged in the mini LCD 204 is lit Unlike the computing system itself the user feedback mechanism 200 is preferably left on or powered at all times The user feedback mechanism 200 thus operates even when the computing system is off or asleep Other illustrated hardware of the computing system includes a main processor 216 a monitor 220 a keyboard 222 a mouse 223 and a peripheral device 224 The main processor 216 is a typical microprocessor for running an operati
10. an operating condition message corresponding to the operating condition on a display panel of a user feedback mechanism of the computing system to alert a user to the operating condition independently of an operating system of the computing system 13 The method of claim 12 further comprising the step of clearing the operating condition message from the display panel if the operating condition is cured 14 The method of claim 12 further comprising the step of signaling a power supply of the computing system to power off the computer system independently of the operating system 15 The method of claim 12 the monitoring step com prising the step of monitoring a connection state of the computing system to the Internet 16 The method of claim 12 the monitoring step com prising the step of monitoring a state of a peripheral device of the computing system 17 The method of claim 12 the monitoring step com prising the step of monitoring an e mail notification message to the comput ing system 18 The method of claim 12 the monitoring step com prising the step of monitoring atomic time from a network serer coupled to the computing system Jul 5 2001 19 The method of claim 12 wherein the monitoring step is performed by an application after system initialization of the computing system 20 The method of claim 12 wherein the monitoring step is performed by system BIOS during system initialization of the com
11. cation Publication Jul 5 2001 Sheet 7 of 7 US 2001 0007140 Al 100 OPERATING SYSTEM 604 APPLICATION APPLICATION 600 LCD INTERFACE COM BASED CLIENT 118 LCD INTERFACE DRIVER 105 608 210 606 214 202 204 SYSTEM B POWER SUPPLY INTERFACE CONTROLLER UART 610 FIG 6 US 2001 0007140 Al OPERATING SYSTEM INDEPENDENT COMPUTING SYSTEM USER FEEDBACK MECHANISM CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 0001 This application is continuation in part of U S patent application Ser No 09 478 153 entitled DIGITAL FEEDBACK DISPLAY PANEL AND SUPPORTING SOFTWARE FOR A COMPUTER USER filed Jan 5 2000 which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0002 1 Field of the Invention 0003 The present invention generally relates to operating condition user feedback for computing systems and more particularly to an operating system independent user feed back mechanism of a computing system 0004 2 Description of the Related Art 0005 User feedback with respect to operating conditions or states of a computer system has typically been provided by a monitor audio alerts light emitting diodes LEDs or directly by an operating system of the computer system Each of these forms of user feedback in effect depends upon operating system control Where an operating condition relates to an error with the operating system itself the op
12. ceeds to step 412 where the ACPI logic 210 is reset signaling the power supply 214 to turn off At this point the computing system can be considered as in a safe mode From step 410 control proceeds to step 412 where the processing of the safety button 206 is complete This process provides a way to ensure that the operating system 100 is shutdown By using the safety button 206 a user can be ensured that the computing system is in a depowered state With this assur ance a user can then be more comfortable opening or moving the computing system The use of the safe mode can prevent a user from accidentally powering off the computing system with files open in the operating system 100 0025 Referring to FIG 5 exemplary software compo nents which may be included in the user feedback module 106 of FIG 1 is shown As previously shown in FIG 1 the user feedback module 106 includes an operating system interface 110 the BIOS interface 112 and the ACPI interface 114 The user feedback module 106 may further include client software components such as a device monitor 500 an Internet monitor 502 an atomic time monitor 504 an email monitor 506 and an Internet message monitor 508 The device monitor 500 is used to detect the connection or other state of peripheral devices For example if the peripheral device is a CD ROM drive it can be detected whether the drive contains an audio CD a data CD or a DVD CD Ina disclosed embodiment th
13. e device monitor 500 uses the WM_DEVICECHANGE signal provided by the operating system 100 to detect device states If the device is a printer US 2001 0007140 Al then the device monitor 500 uses the WM_SPOOLERSTA TUS signal provided by the operating system 100 to detect if a print job is started or finished Those skilled in the art are familiar with calling application programming interfaces APIs into an operating system to retrieve desired informa tion known by the operating system A variety of standard APIs may be employed to retrieve potentially useful infor mation for a user from an operating system In the past such information has not been retrieved processed and displayed to the user 0026 The Internet monitor 502 is used to detect if the computing system is connected to the Internet In a disclosed embodiment the Internet monitor 502 registers with the operating system 100 to receive messages regarding Remote Access Services RAS The Internet monitor 502 is informed by a notification or message when an Internet connection is made or disconnected The atomic time moni tor 504 is used to detect atomic time from a server or network computer coupled to the computing system during an Internet connection The email monitor 506 is used to detect email notifications for the computing system The Internet message monitor 508 is used to detect Internet messages for the computing system The monitors 500 508 correspond to steps 302
14. e user and includes a controller to monitor a plurality of operating condition signals Further the user feedback mechanism is indepen dently powered and further includes a safety button to signal a power supply to power off the computing system inde pendently of the operating system Examples of operating conditions include a connection state of the computing system to the Internet and a connection state of a peripheral device to the computing system Other examples of operat ing conditions that the user feedback mechanism displays to the user independently of the operating system include a new e mail notification message a new Internet message or atomic time from a network server coupled to the computing system An operating condition message is cleared from the display panel when the operating condition is cured BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0009 better understanding of the present invention can be obtained when the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment is considered in conjunction with the following drawings in which 0010 FIG 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary soft ware architecture of a computing system with an operating system independent user feedback module 0011 FIG 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary hard ware architecture of the computing system with an operating system independent user feedback mechanism 0012 FIGS and show a flow chart illustrating exemplary operati
15. er If it is determined in step 330 that the operating condition is cured then control proceeds to step 332 where the instruc tion is cleared from the mini LCD 204 It should be understood that step 326 of displaying an instruction to cure a operating condition is optional For example if the oper ating condition message itself implies what a user needs to do to cure an operating condition it may be desirable to not display an instruction to inform the user how to cure the operating condition In other words there may be some cases where once a user is informed of the operating condition it is self explanatory how to cure the operating condition 0023 Steps 334 340 are presented to illustrate situations where steps in addition to message display are performed by the user feedback mechanism 200 after detecting certain Jul 5 2001 operating conditions If an Internet message or an email notification is detected in step 334 control proceeds to step 336 where the message indicator 208 is set For example if two email notifications were detected then the message indicator 208 is set to periodically blink twice If an Internet message or email notification is not detected in step 334 then control proceeds directly to step 338 In step 338 it is determined if atomic time is detected If not control pro ceeds to step 342 indicating the operating condition feed back process is complete If atomic time is detected in step 338 then con
16. erating system cannot detect such an error A lock up of the operating system is therefore particularly difficult for a user to detect One drawback of relying upon the operating system and the monitor to provide user feedback is that neither the operating system nor the monitor are available at all times A computer system is typically configured to enter a low power or sleep mode after a certain period of idle time where neither the monitor nor the operating system are available Because of the unavailability of the monitor and the operating system in a low power mode certain operating conditions are not communicated to a user For example a user cannot determine when a new e mail is available during a low power mode Even a feature such as a digital clock has depended upon the monitor being fully awake and upon the operating system 0006 Many computer users tend to be frustrated with user feedback in the form of audio alerts and LEDs Audio alerts are perceived by users as annoying Many users therefore lower the volume of their computer systems defeating the purpose of the audio alerts LEDs including the hard disk drive LED of a computer system are perceived by users as confusing particularly where flashing patterns of the LEDs signify different operating conditions of the com puter system Even when users somewhat understand an operating condition conveyed by the monitor audio alerts or LEDs most users are fearful of touching and in
17. exhaustive As one example an operating condition which may be detected using a watermark setting is whether a hard disk drive of the computing system is almost full As another example it may be detected whether the hard disk is about to crash An operating condition may be detected by a notification or alert Alternatively at a desired time the process may poll or query for an operating condition For each of steps 302 318 control proceeds next to step 320 In step 320 the operating condition is communicated to the mini LCD 204 Communication of an operating condition to the mini LCD 204 is described below in connection with FIG 6 As represented by the step 328 a detected operating condition may be read by an application or the operating system 100 0022 Next control proceeds to step 324 where an oper ating condition message corresponding to the operating condition is displayed by the mini LCD 204 From step 324 control proceeds to step 325 where an operating condition display complete signal is generated by the interface con troller 202 Control next proceeds to step 326 where an instruction to cure the operating condition is displayed by the mini LCD 204 Next in step 330 it is then determined if the operating condition is cured If the operating condition is not cured then control remains in step 330 In this way the instruction to cure the operating condition remains displayed until the operating condition is cured by the us
18. ient 612 or the application 602 or 604 In an alternative embodiment such functionality may to some extent be integrated into the operating system 100 itself although potentially sacrificing some independence from the operating system 100 In a disclosed embodiment the interface controller 202 is a microcontroller in the 80C52 family For sake of clarity certain well known components e g memory latch and other logic used by a display controller in communicating with a display are not shown 0034 Thus a computing system provides a user feedback or digital dashboard mechanism to monitor and alert a user of operating conditions independently of an operating sys tem An application or client monitors operating conditions and talks to a display panel through a display interface In this way the application or client may talk to the display panel in connection with any operating system During system initialization of the computing system system BIOS is available for the client to use to talk to the display panel independently of both the display interface and the operating system 0035 One advantage of the user feedback mechanism is that potentially useful information known by the operating system is actually retrieved processed and displayed to a user in a comprehensible and user friendly fashion A further advantage of the user feedback mechanism is that informa tion which is not specifically known by the operating system can be m
19. isplay panel displays a plurality of instructions to the user for the user to cure the plurality of operating conditions 7 The computing system of claim 1 wherein the user feedback mechanism monitors an operating condition of the plurality of operating conditions after system initialization by processing data from the operating system into a more meaningful form 8 The computing system of claim 1 the user feedback mechanism comprising system BIOS to monitor the plurality of operating con ditions during system initialization of the computing system by bypassing the operating system 9 The computing system of claim 8 wherein the plurality of operating conditions comprises a plurality of primary device states for a plurality of primary devices of the computing system 10 The computing system of claim 1 the user feedback mechanism comprising a safety button configured to signal a power supply to power off the computing system if the computing system is not powered off by the operating system US 2001 0007140 Al 11 The computing system of claim 1 the user feedback mechanism comprising a plurality of fault tolerant client software components to monitor the plurality of operating conditions after sys tem initialization of the computing system 12 A method of operating condition user feedback for a computing system comprising the steps of monitoring an operating condition of the computing sys tem and displaying
20. message a new Internet message and atomic time from a network server coupled to the computing system The user feedback mechanism may include a safety button to signal a power supply to power off the computing system independently of the operating system Patent Application Publication Jul 5 2001 Sheet 1 of 7 US 2001 0007140 Al GS COMPUTING SYSTEM SOFTWARE 100 SYSTEM REGISTRY OPERATING SYSTEM 124 122 INTERNET MANAGER TASK SCHEDULER 05 INTERFACE 102 SYSTEM BIOS 178 INTERFACE LCD INTERFACE DRIVER FIG 1 Patent Application Publication Jul 5 2001 Sheet 2 of 7 US 2001 0007140 Al CH COMPUTING SYSTEM HARDWARE 200 OS INDEPENDENT USER FEEDBACK MECHANISM MINI LCD INTERFACE CONTROLLER SAFETY BUTTON MESSAGE INDICATOR 220 MONITOR 222 KEYBOARD MAIN PROCESSOR PERIPHERAL DEVICE 21 223 POWER SUPPLY FIG 2 Patent Application Publication Jul 5 2001 Sheet 3 of 7 US 2001 0007140 Al OS INDEPENDENT OPERA TING CONDITION FEEDBACK PROCESS 317 APPLICATION SEND OPERATING CONDITION 318 CONNECTION STATE DETECT MONITOR CONNECTION STATE DETECT POWER DETECT INTERNET MESSAGE DETECT 05 LOCK UP STATE 316 DETECT DETE
21. n level logical interface to the mini LCD 204 of the user feedback mechanism 200 For example the application 604 through the LCD interface 600 can provide operating conditions to the user feedback mecha nism 200 and can also specially configure display by the mini LCD 204 for the particular application 604 The LCD interface 600 is specially configured to encapsulate func tionality for the application 602 or 604 to communicate with the mini LCD 204 of the user feedback mechanism 200 The LCD interface 600 is basically an open mechanism for any application 602 or 604 known by or registered with the operating system 100 to communicate with the mini LCD 204 The LCD interface 600 may also be used by the application 602 or 604 to read information from the mini Jul 5 2001 LCD 204 The application 602 or 604 can be written in any computer language e g Java C or HTML 0028 The table below shows a variety of interface meth ods for the LCD interface 600 Beside the name of each interface method shown a general description of the inter face method is provided Interface Method Name Interface Method Description SetClock This method updates the time of the internal clock of the mini LCD and the system clock of the operating system This method updates the date and time of the internal clock of the mini LCD and the system clock of the operating system This method is used to set an LED for the feedback mechanism to an on off or bli
22. ng system and other software The monitor 220 the keyboard 222 the mouse 223 and the peripheral device 224 represent periph eral devices which may generate operating conditions to be detected and then displayed to a user For example if the monitor 220 is disconnected a message e g text and or icon indicating the monitor 220 is disconnected may be displayed on the mini LCD 204 In a disclosed embodiment the user feedback mechanism 200 monitors each level of connection and removal of peripheral devices of the com puting system The monitor 220 the keyboard 222 and the mouse 223 are treated as primary devices of the computing system As such the states of these devices are checked during system initialization as described in more detail below 0021 Referring to FIGS 3A 3B an exemplary operating system independent operating condition feedback process using the user feedback mechanism 200 is shown The process begins at any of the steps 302 318 which represent detection of a variety of operating conditions In step 302 the operating condition is an Internet connection state of the computing system In step 304 the operating condition is the keyboard connection state of the computing system In step 306 the operating condition is the monitor connection state of the computing system In step 308 the operating condi tion is the connection state of a peripheral device in the computing system In step 310 the operating condition is a
23. nking state The supported LEDs are a sleep LED an Internet detect LED a power LED a message LED and a backlight LED DisplayText This method is used to control parameters for displaying text on the mini LCD SimplyDisplayText This method is used to display text on the mini LCD with default text display parameters SimplyScrollText This method is used to scroll text on the mini LCD with default scrolling parameters GetLCDLongProperties This method is used to fetch the properties of the mini LCD ClearText This method clears the text display area of the mini LCD and displays the clock if no pending text is waiting to be displayed SetClockEX SetLEDState DisplayIcon This method is used to control parameters for displaying icons on the mini LCD SimplyDisplayIcon This method is used to display icons on the mini LCD with default icon display parameters BlinkIcon This method is used to control blinking of icons on the mini LCD DisplayIconEX This method is used to display icons on the mini LCD with blinking and timeout control ClearIcon This method is used to clear an icon from the mini LCD LoadIcon This method downloads an icon with its icon handle to the mini LCD LoadIconFromBitmap This method downloads an icon from a bitmap to the mini LCD LoadIconFromByteArray This method downloads an icon from a one dimensional array to the mini LCD LoadIconFromPicture This method extracts icon data f
24. o service requests from the user or remotely download code updates to the user Unlike application 604 application 602 is shown coupled to the operating system 100 to represent that an application may leverage the resources of the operating system 100 An application may also leverage the resources of another application It should be understood that a variety of applications or clients may communicate with the user feedback mechanism 200 As such the appli cations and clients disclosed herein are illustrative and not exhaustive With the exception of reference numerals in the Driver Entry Point Name Jul 5 2001 description of FIG 6 applications and clients are used herein interchangeably The client 612 such as one repre sented by any of monitors 500 508 in FIG 6 communicates with the mini LCD 204 through the LCD interface driver 118 or the system BIOS 102 The LCD interface driver 118 is coupled to the LCD interface 600 and to input output I O logic 608 In a disclosed embodiment the LCD interface driver 118 is configured as an RS 232 or other serial port driver In addition in a disclosed embodiment the driver 118 includes entry points typical of a Windows driver model WDM NT driver as well as driver entry points specialized for the user feedback mechanism 200 The table below shows a variety of driver entry points used in connection with the user feedback mechanism 200 Beside the name of each driver entry point shown a de
25. od of operation may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention We claim 1 A computing system comprising an operating system main processor to run the operating system and a user feedback mechanism to monitor a plurality of operating conditions of the computing system and to alert a user of the computing system to the plurality of operating conditions independently of the operating system 2 The computing system of claim 1 the user feedback mechanism comprising a display panel to display a plurality of operating condi tion messages to alert the user to the plurality of operating conditions independently of the operating system 3 The computing system of claim 2 the user feedback mechanism further comprising a controller coupled to the display panel to monitor a plurality of operating condition signals corresponding to the plurality of operating conditions and to commu nicate the plurality of operating conditions to the dis play panel independently of the operating system 4 The computing system of claim 3 the user feedback mechanism further comprising a display panel interface driver to pass the plurality of operating conditions to the controller 5 The computing system of claim 2 the user feedback mechanism further comprising a display panel interface coupled to the display panel for an application to communicate with the display panel 6 The computing system of claim 2 wherein the d
26. on of the operating system independent user feedback module of FIG 1 and the operating system independent user feedback mechanism of FIG 2 0013 FIG 4 is a flow chart illustrating exemplary pro cessing of the safety button of the operating system inde pendent user feedback mechanism of FIG 2 0014 FIG 5 is a block diagram of an exemplary archi tecture of the operating system independent user feedback module of FIG 1 and 0015 FIG 6 is a block diagram illustrating exemplary application level interfacing and system level interfacing for the operating system independent user feedback mecha nism FIG 2 US 2001 0007140 Al DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 0016 The following commonly assigned patent applica tion is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes 0017 U S patent application Ser No 09 557 700 entitled OPERATING SYSTEM HANG DETECTION AND CORRECTION filed Apr 25 2000 by Craig L Chaiken and Stan Stanart 0018 Turning now to the drawings FIG 1 shows exem plary computing system software CS including an operating system 100 system BIOS Basic Input Output System 102 an operating system independent user feedback or interface module 106 and an LCD liquid crystal display interface driver 118 The operating system 100 is a typical operating system including a system registry 126 a clock 120 an Internet manager 124 and a task scheduler 122 The ope
27. onitored and displayed to a user The user feedback mechanism provides a comprehensible way to alert a user to useful information which in the past has not been generated or communicated to the user 0036 By displaying information on the mini display of the user feedback mechanism useful or valuable feedback as to the condition of the computing system may be provided to a user even while a monitor is off or a screen saver is on In other words information which cannot be presented on the main display can be presented on the mini display of the user feedback mechanism Since the user feedback mecha nism operates independently of an operating system a user can be presented with useful feedback information during system initialization when the operating system is unavail able Because of its independence from the operating sys tem the user feedback mechanism is a guaranteed failsafe interface to a computing system that users can depend upon for valuable operational and fault tolerant information 0037 The foregoing disclosure and description of vari ous embodiments are illustrative and explanatory thereof and various changes in the software components operating system applications clients notification messages fault conditions operating events signals icons text messages Jul 5 2001 network protocols order of steps and the like as well as in the details of the illustrated hardware and software and construction and meth
28. pendent of both the operating system 100 and the LCD interface driver 118 system level interfacing by the client 612 with the mini LCD 204 may be handled through the system BIOS 102 Hand shaking and other communication between the LCD inter face driver and system BIOS is described in a commonly assigned U S patent application entitled OPERATING SYSTEM HANG DETECTION AND CORRECTION previously incorporated herein System BIOS 102 and the LCD interface driver 118 are independent of the operating system 100 in a different sense System BIOS 102 is independent of the operating system 100 in the sense that US 2001 0007140 Al device states of the primary devices are detected during system initialization e g POST of the computing system by bypassing the operating system 100 The LCD interface driver 118 and the application 602 or 604 are independent of the operating system 100 in the sense that the manner for the application 602 or 604 and the LCD interface driver 118 to drive the mini LCD 204 is not limited to a particular operating system The resources or mechanisms of any given operating system may be used in driving the mini LCD 204 0033 UART to UART communication is accomplished through the interface controller 202 between the UART 606 of the I O logic 608 and a UART 610 of the mini LCD 204 It should be understood that functionality for communicat ing an operating condition to the mini LCD 204 may be encapsulated in the cl
29. puting system 21 A computing system adapted for operating condition user feedback comprising an operating system a means for monitoring a plurality of operating conditions of the computing system and a means for alerting a user of the computing system to the plurality of operating conditions independently of the operating system 22 The computing system of claim 21 the means for alerting comprising a means for displaying a plurality of operating condition messages corresponding to the plurality of operating conditions 23 The computing system of claim 22 further compris ing a means for clearing the plurality of displayed operating condition messages if the plurality of operating condi tions have been cured 24 The computing system of claim 21 further compris ing a power supply and a means for signaling the power supply to power off the computing system independently of the operating sys tem 25 The computing system of claim 21 wherein the plurality of operating conditions are readable by an appli cation 26 The computing system of claim 21 wherein the means for monitoring comprises an application after system ini tialization of the computing system 27 The computing system of claim 21 wherein the means for monitoring comprises system BIOS during system ini tialization of the computer system
30. r ating system 100 is coupled to both system BIOS 102 and the user feedback module 106 The user feedback module 106 includes an operating system interface 110 coupled to the operating system 100 a BIOS interface 112 coupled to the system BIOS 102 and an ACPI Advanced Configuration and Power Interface interface 114 to interface with ACPI logic The LCD interface driver 118 is also coupled to the user feedback module 106 The user feedback module 106 the LCD interface driver 118 and the system BIOS 102 in combination provide software control of an operating sys tem independent user feedback or digital dashboard mecha nism 200 such as shown in FIG 2 The term computing system as used herein refers to any system with a superset or subset of processing or Internet functions of a computer system including but not limited to Internet appliances and information appliances 0019 Referring to FIG 2 exemplary computing system hardware CH including the user feedback mechanism 200 is shown The user feedback mechanism 200 is employed to monitor operating conditions including fault conditions of a computing system and to alert a user to the operating conditions independently of the operating system 100 The concept of monitoring operating conditions should be construed to encompass detecting data and processing the data to a more meaningful form to determine an operating condition An operating condition generally refers to any event
31. rom an OLE picture object for the mini LCD LoadFont This method extracts font data from an OLE font object for the mini LCD LoadFontFrom This method downloads a font from a byte ByteArray array to the mini LCD PlaySound This method plays sound for the feedback mechanism with default sound parameters PlaySoundEX This method controls parameters for playing sound for the feedback mechanism 0029 It should be understood that the COM interface methods disclosed herein are illustrative and not exhaustive 0030 A variety of application specific messages may be displayed by the mini LCD 204 If the application for example is Microsoft Word then the mini LCD 204 may be used to indicate that Microsoft Word is launching or to indicate that Microsoft Word is terminating The applica tion 602 or 604 can be scheduled for launching by the operating system 100 and can be self terminated when not needed As another example if the application 604 is a paging application then the application 604 can signal the US 2001 0007140 Al mini LCD 204 to display paging mom when the applica tion 604 is being used to page the mother of the user Five other examples of applications that may communicate with the user feedback mechanism 200 include a calculator application a calendar application an alarm application a voice mail application and a web based diagnostic appli cation for the computing system manufacturer to remotely reply t
32. scription of the driver entry point is provided Driver Entry Point Description DriverEntry This routine ensures that the driver is loaded Dispatch CPQLCD_ Startlo CPQLCD_ Unload CPQLCD AddDevice CPQLCD RemoveDevice CPQLCD_ Create CPQLCD Close CPQLCD Write CPQLCD Read CPQLCD ConnectInterrupt CPQLCD InterruptServiceRoutine CPQLCD__DpeRoutine when the mini LCD is found It also registers the rest of the entry points of the driver with the operating system and makes them visible to the operating system This routine services the calls from applications clients and services IOCTLs which are supported by the driver This routine is used to interface with a physical device This routine disconnects and un registers from all the interrupts that it services once it has unloaded This routine adds a device object when a new device such as the mini LCD is detected This routine removes a device This routine creates a handle to call into the driver This routine closes a handle for a specific client and deletes the resources allocated by that client This routine handles write requests for the driver This routine handles read requests for the driver This routine registers the driver with the operating system for servicing specific interrupts from the mini LCD This routine saves data necessary for ervicing an interrupt after an interrupt arrives and then dismisses the interr
33. trol proceeds to step 340 where the clock 120 of the operating system 100 and a clock of the user feedback mechanism 200 are both updated with the atomic time By updating the clock of the user feedback mechanism 200 the mini LCD 204 displays atomic time From step 340 the process is completed in step 342 0024 Referring to FIG 4 processing of the safety button 206 FIG 2 is shown The process begins in step 400 where it is determined if a press or actuation of the safety button 206 by a user is detected If a press or actuation is not detected then control remains in step 400 If a press or actuation is detected then control proceeds to step 402 where the ACPI timer 212 is started Next in step 404 a shutdown of the operating system 100 is initiated Control then proceeds to step 406 where it is determined if the ACPI timer 212 has expired If the ACPI timer 212 has not expired then control remains in step 406 If the ACPI timer 212 has expired then control proceeds to step 408 where it is determined if the operating system 100 is shutdown Detec tion of a hang up by the operating system 100 is described in a commonly assigned U S patent application entitled OPERATING SYSTEM HANG DETECTION AND COR RECTION previously incorporated herein If the operating system 100 is shutdown then control proceeds to step 412 where processing of the safety button 206 is complete If the operating system 100 is not shutdown then control pro
34. upt This routine generates deferred procedure calls queued by the interrupt service routine from any interrupt related processing CPQLCD Is ICD Present This routine is used to determine if the mini LCD exists CPQLCD Set Baud Rate This routine is used to set the baud rate of the mini LCD CPQLCD SendCmdTo LCD This routine is used to send a command to the mini LCD GetRegistryDword This routine is used to read a DWORD GetNextIconLocation This routine routines the next available free icon location for the mini LCD CleanUpClientIcons This routine is used to clean up or clear icons for a particular client or application ClearIconLocation This routine allows a client or application to selectively call and remove icons SendAByte This routine is used to send a byte to a particular port SetBaudRate This routine is used to set the baud rate for a port US 2001 0007140 Al Jul 5 2001 continued EnableIRQTriggering This routine is used to enable interrupt request triggering ResetIRQTriggering This routine is used to reset interrupt request riggering ReadStatusPort This routine is used to read a status port ReceiveByte This routine is used to read a byte from a port SendByteWhenReady This routine is used to send a byte when a port is ready CompleteIRP This routine is used to complete an IRP StartPacket This routine is used to queue an IRP For ext command or LED command example the IR
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