Although DMA controllers could be designed around a veriety of configurations all of these configurations must satisfy certain requirements.

During a block input byte transfer the following sequence occures as the datum is sent from the interface to the memory:

1. The interface sends the controller a request for DMA service
2. The controller gains control of the bus
3. The contents of the address register are put on the address bus
4. The controller sends the interface a DMA acknowledgment which tells the interface to put data on the data bus (For an output it signals the interface to latch the next data placed on the bus)
5. The data byte is transferred to the memory location indicated by the address bus
6. The controller relinquishes the bus
7. The address register is incremented by 1
8. The byte count register is decremented by 1
9. If the byte count register is nonzero return to step 1; otherwise stop