Design of a microprocessor based packet switch

The design of a packet switch incorporating a minicomputer to control and process data packets in a communications system has been reported. This paper proposes a design which uses a 6500 series microprocessor to realize the functions of a message switch in order to evaluate the viability of microprocessors in this application. The proposed design realizes the functions of header analysis, packet security, error control and line prioritization. The system hardware and software are presented together with a brief description of operation.