JPS5924429B2 - How to display print data - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for displaying print data input from a keyboard.

The keyboard for inputting characters is equipped with a display device using a CRT (cathode ray tube) or PDP (plasma display panel), etc., to display information such as characters or numbers (hereinafter simply referred to as characters or information) being input. is visually displayed to facilitate the operator's information input operations.

By the way, when a line printer is used as the output device, the length of one line of input information is quite long, for example, about 160 digits with a line printer. If eight lines are to be displayed, the display screen will need to have a size of 160 columns x eight lines, making it quite long and narrow. However, as you can easily see by thinking of CRTs, etc., it is generally difficult to make a long and narrow display screen, whereas a square one is easier to make.
In addition, keyboards have functions such as tabs, and conventionally, in order to provide this function, a program was created prior to the input operation and stored in the control device, but creating a program is cumbersome and costly. Since it is the personnel cost itself, it tends to gradually increase.

Therefore, the present invention proposes a display method that can display the necessary input information on a small, almost square surface screen, and also allows the operator to easily set tabs, etc., and does not require a program. It is.

The print data display method of the present invention includes: a first memory section that has a capacity for one line of the printer and into which print data is sequentially written; a second memory section that stores field information such as tabs and cursors; A third memory section having a capacity for a plurality of lines of the screen and into which, when the first memory section is full of print data, the print data corresponding to one line of the display screen from the left end of the line is sequentially written. Using the screen data buffer, one line of the display screen is read from the right end of the line of the third memory part and the first and second memory parts of the buffer, and the first and second memory parts are stored in the lower two rows of the display screen. When one line of the display screen is full, the column information read from the section and the print data currently being input are scrolled to the left, and the remaining multiple lines at the top of the display screen are read from the third memory section. When inputting the print data for one printer line in the lower two lines is completed, add one line of the display screen from the left end of the line to the bottom line of the remaining upper plural lines while scrolling the entire print data upward, This will be described in detail below with reference to embodiments. FIG. 1 shows a CRT display screen 10, with display columns 1 to 8 corresponding to lines in a document.

If you use normal TV CTR, the number of characters per line is 80.
Normally, the number of characters (for Kanji is half this, 40 characters), and the number of lines is 8, but in this invention, by using a display element, the number of characters per line is twice that, 160 characters (80 characters for Kanji). ), and uses the following display method. That is, a document is generally printed from the left end, and printing for that line ends at the right end or in the middle. While inputting, it is preferable to be able to see all of the input characters in order to check for errors and monitor the input position, but if you can see part of the input line, you can get a rough idea of what information has been input, so display all the characters. It is not necessarily necessary to do so. Therefore, in the present invention, in the input lines 1 to 6 of the upper six columns, only 80 characters (40 Kanji characters) from near the left end of each line are displayed, and the remaining 80 characters are not displayed. In the lower two columns, row 7 displays the character currently being input, and row 8 displays column information. Since one line has 80 (40) characters, if 80 (40) characters are displayed on line 7, it will become full.

Therefore, from now on, all the characters in line 7 are moved to the left (referred to as scrolling), and the remaining characters are sequentially displayed at the right end or right part of line 7. In this way, all characters will be displayed on the line you are inputting (of course, 80 characters, 40 characters for Kanji).
(The characters disappear from the left edge after that), and when all the input for that line is completed and you press the line feed button, the already printed line 1 is displayed.
6, only the 80 characters on the left half (40 characters in kanji, the following explanation will be explained using kanji as an example) are scrolled and displayed on the bottom row 6 of 6. At this time, if lines that have already been input are displayed in lines 6, etc., these lines will be moved upwards, that is, the characters in line 6 will be displayed in lines 5, etc.
, the characters in line 5 are scrolled upward to line 4, ie, the entire character is scrolled upward. Of course, the displayed characters in line 1 disappear. As shown in Figure 2, line 8 that displays column information has a * mark to indicate the 1st digit, 2nd digit, etc., an * mark to indicate the 5th digit, 15th digit, etc. Numbers 1 and 2 to display the 10th digit, 20th digit, etc.
, 3, 4, etc. are displayed.

In this printer, the operator can set a tab at a desired digit position, and when a button on the keyboard is pressed to perform this tab setting operation, a cursor 11 appears at the left end as shown in FIG. When the space button is pressed, the cursor advances one digit at a time, and when the tab button is pressed at a desired digit position, a tab bar 12 appears as shown in FIG. 2. This field information can only be up to 40 digits (taking Kanji as an example) in row 8.
Although it cannot be displayed, when tab setting after column 41, the column information scrolls to the left. That is, FIG. 2 and 3 show an example in which the cursor, that is, the input position is advanced to 40 digits, but if the input position is further advanced by one digit, the entire screen is scrolled one digit to the left as shown in FIG. 4. The same goes for the rest, and when the tab set is completed at the 56th digit tab set as shown in FIG. 5, the tab set end is designated (the tab set button is released). FIG. 3 shows a control circuit section of a CRT display device.

In this figure, 21 is a data bus, 22 is an address bus, and 23 is a data bus.
24 is an interface circuit, and 24 is a display control circuit, which includes shift registers 24a and 24b for two rows. Also 2
5 is a memory access circuit, and 26 is a one-screen data buffer, the details of which are shown in FIG. 27 is a character generator memory, 28 is a shift register, and 29 is a CRT display section.

As shown in FIG. 4, the one screen data buffer 26 is n-1.
A memory 34 for lines, in this example 6 lines (6 x 40 characters),
It has a memory 35 for two lines (2 x 40 characters), twice as much as a normal one. Note that this memory 26 also includes a memory section with eight rows of column information, but this is omitted in the drawing. Furthermore, the memory access circuit 25 includes an n-row determination circuit 31 and a counter shift circuit 3.
2, and a counter 33. The data printed by the printer is written to a buffer (not shown) for input to a computer, etc., and is also sent to the one-screen data buffer 26 (indicated by signal S5) through the data bus 21 and interface circuit 23, and then to the memory 35. Data for 40 characters, half from the left of each row, is sequentially written from the memory to the memory 34. The data sent from the data bus 21 is 16 bits per word, and the address signal from the address bus 22 is 4 bits. When the signal S1 designating a row is input from the display control circuit 24, the determination circuit 31 determines whether the row is the last row n, and if it is not the last row, it operates the counter 33 as usual to generate the memory address signal S4. , when the 1-row data request signal S3 is input, 4 of the relevant row is input from the 1-screen data buffer 26.
Read character data for 0 characters (this is also indicated by signal S5)
. This character data signal is passed through the interface 23 to one of the shift registers of the display control circuit 24, for example 24a.
to go into. In the display control circuit 24, the other shift register 2
4b is used to apply a character code signal S3 and a raster address signal S6 to the memory 27, generate a character pattern, and cause the CRT to display via the shift register 28. The raster address signal consists of, for example, a 4-bit signal, and repeats the 1st to 16th rasters. Therefore, the screen consists of 16×n scanning lines. The number of dots in the horizontal direction is 9.times.80 because the word structure of the character generator memory 27 is 9 bits. The character code signal S8 corresponds to the data of the correction calculator, for example, the upper 8 bits of the address of the character generator. The raster address signal in this case is the lower 4 bits, resulting in a combined 12-bit address signal. When one line is displayed using the register 24b, the register 24 that has been input at this point is
Use a to display the next line, and during this time register 2
4b (the signal S2 is output when performing this writing), and the same operation is repeated. When the determination circuit 31 detects that the signal S1 commands the last row n, it sends a signal S7 to the counter shift circuit 32 to set the shift data S3 sent from the computer through the interface circuit 23 in the counter 33. .

In other words, the address is advanced by this amount, and the shift data S3 is the number necessary to put the current display digit into the 40-digit display line 7, and as in the example above, the input digit is 40 digits. If the number exceeds 40 digits, the number changes to 1, 2, 3, etc. for each input operation in the method of scrolling to the left one digit at a time. Therefore, the display of the last line n, that is, the display of the line currently being input, will have a maximum of 40 characters, starting with the last character entered manually, and after the 40th digit, the display will scroll one digit to the left for each input operation. Instead of scrolling one digit at a time, it is also possible to scroll a predetermined number of digits at a time.

In order to perform this skip scrolling, the process must be performed at the time of tab set, as shown in FIG. 5a. That is, if you want to scroll all at once so that when you enter a certain digit, that digit (40 digits in this example) becomes the leftmost position, press the skip scroll set button on the keyboard when you have advanced the print position to the 40th digit. Then, a mark appears at the position of number 4 in the field information, and the tab set is similarly stored in the control circuit section of the printer. After that, manual operation is started, and after the 40th digit, the input is scrolled one digit at a time, and in this example, when the input progresses to the 66th digit (the tab set is completed, the cursor 11 now appears on line 7, and it shifts by one digit for each character input operation). Therefore, the position to input is known from this cursor position).Next, it will overflow, so as shown in Figure 5b, the display data in rows 7 and 8 will be scrolled at once so that the 40th digit is at the left end. do. The shift data S3 given to the counter shift circuit 32 during this operation is 30.
Of course, this can be any other number such as 10 or 20, but if you use this method for everything, you can get all the human data (up to 40 digits each, including the one you are currently inputting) with multiple skip scrolls. It will be displayed. In the tab operation, when the operator presses the tab button at the tab set position (T mark position) during input, the input digit is shifted to the next tab mark position. If the tab button is not pressed, no shift is performed even at the tab mark position, and only one digit is shifted for each input operation. This column information line 8 can also be used for other purposes. For example, as shown in FIG. 5c, it is possible to set whether the corresponding digit is intended for character input (indicated by A) or numerical input (indicated by N) at the time of tab setting. If such processing is performed, for example, when a character such as a kana, kanji, or alpha alphabet is entered at the digit position where the mark N is displayed, a buzzer will immediately sound to notify the operator that the input has been erroneous. You can also use these letters N and A as tab marks,
In this case, move the cursor 11 back to set the tab. As shown in the figure, a mouth mark appears at the letter N, indicating that this is the tab set position. Such processing can be easily performed using a computer program, and therefore no dedicated hardware is required. When displaying kanji, it requires twice as much space in height and width as numbers, etc. (for example, 16 x 16 dots for kanji, 8 x 8 dots for kana and alphanumeric characters).
This space is too wide for alphanumeric characters such as 1, 2, etc. in the dot) column information.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, it is preferable to make the column information horizontally long and the line display vertically long. Note that kana and other characters in the data are given the same space as kanji, and numbers are also given the same space when they are one character, but when there are several numbers in a row, they are used vertically in the same way as when displaying lines. As described above in detail, according to the present invention, extremely rational and multifunctional display can be performed.

All characters and numbers currently being input are displayed, and predetermined digits from the left edge of the already input line are displayed (of course, not exactly half, but only part of them), so the display screen and memory are small. That's fine. Since the tab set can be done each time, no program is required, and costs can be reduced. In addition, it can handle text with more digits than the display screen, and since the display surface is square or nearly so, it does not require any special display element and can use an ordinary CRT, resulting in low cost and easy viewing. Furthermore, various advantages can be obtained according to the present invention, such as requiring less screen data buffer capacity.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIGS. 1 and 2 1 to 5 are diagrams explaining the display method of the present invention, FIGS. 3 and 4 are block diagrams showing the configuration of the control circuit of the display section, and FIGS. 5 a to 5 are diagrams illustrating the display method of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating display procedures on a CRT display unit. In the drawing, 10 is the display screen, 7-8 are the bottom two lines, 1-6 are the rest, 11 is the cursor, 12 is the tab mark, 1,...
4th grade is a digit number, and N and A are numbers and character input schedule marks.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A first memory section that has a capacity for one line of the printer and into which print data is sequentially written; a second memory section that stores field information such as tabs and cursors; and a second memory section that has a capacity for multiple lines of a display screen. When the first memory section is full of print data, a one-screen data buffer is used that includes a third memory section in which the print data starting from the left end of the display screen is sequentially written. the third memory section and the first
, reads one line of the display screen from the right end of the line of the second memory section, and displays the column information read from the first and second memory sections and the print data currently being input on the lower two lines of the display screen. When one line of the screen is full, the display is scrolled to the left, and the remaining upper multiple lines of the display screen are filled with print data read from the third memory section, and the lower two lines are used to input one line of printer data. When ends, display screen 1 from the left end of the line
A method for displaying print data, characterized in that a line is added to the bottom line of the remaining upper plurality of lines and the whole is displayed while being scrolled upward.