There is disclosed a system and method for providing an improved common control
bus for use in the on-line insertion of line replaceable units (such as circuit
board cards) into a backplane of a processor shelf, a modem shelf, or a similar
type of equipment. The present invention increases the number of device locations
that a common control bus can access. The present invention comprises a complex
programmable logic device on a circuit board card that is coupled to a common control
bus. The complex programmable logic device is capable of selectively coupling to
the common control bus each one of a plurality of device locations on the circuit
board card. The complex programmable logic device controls data access to and from
each device that is coupled to the common control bus.
