US 4,289,930 AGranted

Electronic apparatus for the display of information received over a line

AssigneeGeneral Electric Company

InventorsDavid C. A. Connolly, Harry Shutt

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Abstract

Apparatus for connection over a telephone line to a remote data bank has provision for displaying a `page` of information received in digital form from the data bank in response to a request for that page being signalled by the apparatus to the data bank identifying the required `page`. To enable the apparatus to be connected to a particular data bank and to signal the identity of a required `page`, the apparatus has a keyboard for operation by the user. Furthermore the apparatus has an electrically-alterable memory for storing the telephone number of several remote data banks and the identity of frequently required `pages`, the information stored by this memory being accessed and utilized by operation of the keyboard on a "short-code" signalling basis.

Claims5

Dependent claims

Electronic apparatus for the display of pages of information signalled from a remote location in response to a request for the information being signalled by the apparatus to the remote location, the apparatus comprising:

(A) a pair of terminals for connection to a transmission line,
(B) a raster-type display unit responsive to video signals for controlling the display thereof,
(C) a data store for storing data representing in digitally-coded form characters to be displayed by the display unit,
(D) means to write character identifying data into the data store in response to signals which are applied to the pair of terminals and which carry the data,
(E) video signal generating means to derive said video signal from the data stored by the data store for supply to the display unit,
(F) a keyboard,
(G) an electrically-alterable memory,
(H) means to enter into the memory in response to operation of the keyboard, data identifying selected pages of information which are to be transmitted from the remote location, and
(I) means responsive to further operation of the keyboard to supply to the pair of terminals for transmission to the remote location signals characterizing at least some of the data stored by the memory and identifying a particular one of the selected pages of information.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.