Communicating system

Stations in a sequence accepting a vector from preceding stations in the sequence communicate data packets to other stations in the sequence. Each station receiving the vector becomes spliced out of the sequence by communicating such a desire to the preceding station, which then provides for the passing of the vector to the station following the next station. Alternatively, an individual station (not in the sequence) between the communicating and next stations can be spliced into the sequence by communicating to all stations such a desire before any response from the next station. If the next station does not respond to the communicating station, the communicating station can splice the next station out of the sequence and provide for the passing of the vector to the following station. Some or all stations may be in a performance mode higher than a set-up mode. Any station preprogrammed to be active in the sequence and to operate in the performance mode may initiate the operation of the performance mode sequence when the stations are operating in the set-up mode. In each cycle, if no station in the performance mode requests the operation to continue in such mode, the stations will revert to the set-up mode. If several successive stations become lost from the sequence, the sequence becomes patched by a special communication from each station to patch the next station into the sequence. In a start-up operation, a first station identifies itself by a communication to the other stations and the special communication in the sequence described in the previous sentence to progressively patch the other stations into the sequence.