Patent 7146445 was granted and assigned to ADTRAN on December, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A test apparatus for telecommunication equipment includes motherboard that executes a resident operation control mechanism, so that the test apparatus exhibits default hardware functionality. However, if a daughtercard has been plugged into the motherboard, the motherboard ignores the default firmware and executes whatever replacement operation control software is provided on the daughtercard—causing the test apparatus to acquire a hardware functionality exclusive of the motherboard default.