James D Schaefer

US Patent:

20110119474, May 19, 2011

Filed:

Nov 16, 2009

Appl. No.:

12/619654

Inventors:

Anand Singh - Henderson NV, US
Pravinkumar Patel - Las Vegas NV, US
Darren LeBlanc - Henderson NV, US
James Schaefer - Henderson NV, US
George Mayfield - Las Vegas NV, US

Assignee:

BALLY GAMING, INC. - Las Vegas NV

International Classification:

G06F 15/177

US Classification:

713 2

Abstract:

Various embodiments disclosed herein are directed to a serial peripheral interface-based (SPI-based) BIOS system for improved upgrading of a BIOS software image in a gaming machine. The system includes a flash BIOS chip and a SPI BIOS chip. The flash BIOS chip is operable to be written to by an Intel chipset for storage of an onboard Ethernet controller's information, wherein the flash BIOS chip may contain a new BIOS software image. The SPI BIOS chip comprises a traditional BIOS including gaming extensions to the BIOS. The SPI BIOS chip can be disabled from write actions at a jumper/circuit level. When a SPI BIOS write enable jumper circuit is ON, a write protect pin of the serial peripheral interface BIOS is in the disabled state. In this regard, when the write protect pin is in the disabled state, the SPI BIOS content may be updated to the new BIOS software image from a BIOS install compact flash. When the BIOS write enable jumper circuit is OFF, the write protect pin of the serial peripheral interface BIOS is in enabled state. In this regard, when the write protect pin is in the enabled state the serial peripheral interface BIOS content cannot be updated

US Patent:

20140149676, May 29, 2014

Filed:

Jan 29, 2014

Appl. No.:

14/167035

Inventors:

- Las Vegas NV, US
Anand Singh - Henderson NV, US
James Schaefer - Henderson NV, US

International Classification:

G06F 11/07
G06F 12/12

US Classification:

711133

Abstract:

Various embodiments are directed to a gaming device including a background memory validation system. The background memory validation system includes a background kernel thread that validates read-only pages on the gaming device. Additionally, the background kernel thread also minimizes potential timing problems because this process only validates page content in memory that is fully-loaded and functional.