Method and apparatus for displaying textual or graphic data on the screen of television receivers

A method for displaying textual or graphic data on the screen of television receivers comprising the steps of:

• transmitting to a television receiver equivalent data in a VBI of a television signal, the equivalent data including a plurality of translations, or graphical representatives, in one or more foreign languages, of the local language commands;
• creating a language menu including a listing of the foreign languages;
• displaying the language menu on the screen;
• choosing one of the transmitted foreign languages from the language menu at the television receiver;
• and
• displaying foreign language translation of the commands corresponding to the chosen foreign language on the screen.

A method for displaying textual or graphic data on a screen of a television receiver comprising the steps of:

• storing in a local memory at the television receiver a set of commands in a first language and a set of the same commands in a second language, wherein the set of commands in the second language are received on a subcarrier of a television signal;
• selecting one of the sets of commands for display on the screen;
• assigning addresses to each set of commands indicative of the location on the screen where the commands are to be displayed;
• configuring a microprocessor to display commands depending upon their addresses;
• storing a status bit that indicates the selected set of commands to be displayed;
• configuring the microprocessor when a call is made for a command to issue an address to designate a screen location, to retrieve the command responsive to the status bit and the issued address, and to display the retrieved command.