Back to results
US 4,241,340 AGranted
Apparatus for generating displays of variable size characters
AssigneeHarris Corporation
InventorMeredith T. Raney, Jr.
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeHarris Corporation
InventorMeredith T. Raney, Jr.
Estimating the term…
A character display system is disclosed which provides displays of characters of variable size. A diddle raster scanning technique is used to display each character in its entirely before proceeding with the display of the next character. The size of the character is increased by increasing the size of the diddle raster scanned. In order to improve the appearance of larger point size characters, each character stroke is repeated a number of times N, where N increases with increasing point size. A circuit (112) provides an indication of the size of the character to be displayed. This indication is used to address a ROM (146) which contains control information (D1-D5) therein. A portion (D2, ) D3, D5) of this information controls the size of the diddle raster scanned, and another portion (D1) provides the number N indicating the number of times each character stroke is to be repeated. A video generator (114) generates a video signal on the basis of this number N and various character codes supplied to it. A third portion (D4) of the control information sets the intensity of the video signal in accordance with point size so that characters of different sizes have the same apparent brightness.
Apparatus for controlling an energy beam to paint a plurality of variable size characters on an energy responsive surface one at a time, comprising:
Apparatus as set forth in claims 1 or 3, wherein said means for providing information representing the individual strokes to be displayed to generate a selected image comprises character memory means having a plurality of words stored therein, each of said words representing pixel information for generating a single stroke of one of a plurality of characters, and means for addressing said memory with character codes indicating which of said plurality of characters is to be displayed so as to recover from said memory the words corresponding to the character strokes thereof.
A method of displaying variable size characters in a system in which the characters are painted on an energy responsive surface one at a time by causing an energy beam to raster scan only the minor portion of the display surface in which that character is to be displayed, comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.