² For simplicity, the soft channel can be thought of as a word in memory acting as a buffer. The transmitting task uses it as a buffer to transmit its packet in small chunks to the receiving task. The implementation, however, is more elaborate: the memory word implementing a soft channel contains a pointer (PSW) to the first task that initiates a transfer. When the second task is ready, the transfer occurs, and the pointer is used by the second task to reactivate the first one.