CONTROL AND COMMUNICATIONS APPARATUS

A master/slave communication and control system includes a master controller and a plurality of slave subsystems, the master controller connected with the slave subsystems through first and second independent serial data buses, one of the data buses providing a working data bus, the other data bus providing a standby data bus. The master controller generates a A/B select signal applied to each of the slave subsystems to select which of the A or B data buses the slave .subsystems will use to communicate with the master controller. Each of those slave subsystems generates an independent request for communication signal, carried on an input request line to the master controller. A plurality of kill signals are generated by the master controller and applied over independent kill lines to each of the slave subsystems, whereby the master controller may send the kill signal to any one of the slave subsystems. Each of the slave subsystems can receive its respective kill signal and disconnect itself from the data buses.