JPH0145075B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention provides an electronic device such as a computer,
The present invention relates to a method for visually displaying characters such as letters, symbols, numbers, etc., and more specifically, relates to a method for displaying characters that are larger than display digits.

In the prior art, when the number of characters to be displayed is greater than the number of display digits, the characters are divided into a plurality of parts according to the number of display digits and are sequentially displayed in a plurality of times. In such prior art, no consideration is given to the meaning and ease of grasping the contents when visually read.

Furthermore, in the prior art disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 52-79640, when the number of characters to be displayed is greater than the number of display digits, each character is sequentially shifted and displayed. Even in such prior art, it is extremely difficult to understand the meanings of multiple characters.

In the present invention, the number of digits is larger than that which can be displayed on the display unit.
When displaying multiple characters, if you want to display multiple characters in groups, by shifting to this grouped character unit,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a display method that makes it easy to read the meaning, content, etc. formed by characters in one group (one unit). Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a front view of an electronic dictionary that also performs display using the display method of the present invention. By inputting and operating a word or the like for which the user wants to know the meaning from the key input section K, the answer is displayed on the display section DSP.

FIG. 2 is a block circuit diagram of the electronic dictionary shown in FIG. A key input section, a display section DSP, a display control circuit DSC, and an external memory unit MU are connected to the central processing unit CPU in association with the key input section.
Key strobe output terminal W of central processing unit CPU
By outputting key strobe signals from keys 1 to W8, a signal representing the operated key is applied from key input section K to key input terminals K1 to K4. The display unit DSP is a dot matrix type liquid crystal display with multiple digits, for example, 21 digits in this embodiment. Each display digit is provided with a segment electrode and a common counter electrode facing the segment electrode.
DSP is the output terminal H1 to H of the central processing unit CPU.
7 receives the counter electrode signal for selecting the counter electrode from the output terminals S1 to S of the display control circuit DSC.
Display is performed by receiving segment signals selecting segment electrodes from 126. Signals from the memory address output terminals BM1 and BL1 in the central processing unit CPU are transmitted to the display control circuit DSC and the memory digit address input terminals BL2 and BL3 of the external memory unit MU.
Memory file address input terminal BM2, BM3
are input respectively. In Figure 2, to simplify the diagram, these terminals BM1 to BM3, BL
The line connecting BL1 to BL3 is shown as a single white line. Display in central processing unit CPU/
The display/erase control signal DIS from the erase control signal output terminal DIS1 is applied to the display/erase control signal input terminal DIS2 of the display control circuit DSC. This display/
The erasure signal DIS is a signal for controlling display or erasure on the display section DSP. central processing unit
In the CPU, display control circuit DSC, and external memory unit MU, data input/output terminals indicated by the same reference numeral DIO for simplicity are connected to each other. The central processing unit CPU, the display control circuit DSC and the external memory unit MU are interconnected to read/write signal terminals designated by the same reference numeral RW for simplicity. Bit cell F at a specific position of the output buffer register F provided in the central processing unit CPU
The signals from 1 and F2 are input to the chip selection signal input terminal CE1 of the display control circuit DSC and the chip selection signal input terminal CE2 of the external memory unit MU, respectively, and are input to the bit cells F1 and F2 at specific positions of the output buffer register F. Depending on the contents of , the operation of either the display control circuit DSC or the external memory unit MU is selected. The external memory unit MU consists of random access memory. The display control circuit DSC has a display data storage unit DRM consisting of a random access memory.

The above-mentioned display control circuit DSC is specifically shown in FIG. In this display control circuit DSC, the display data storage unit DRM includes an address decoder DC6.
is connected. This decoder DC6 is the memory digit address output terminal of the central processing unit CPU.
BL1 and memory file address output terminal BM1
The information obtained from these input terminals BL2 and
It is decoded from BM2 via address buffer AB. The read/write control circuit RWC receives a read/write signal obtained from the read/write terminal RW, and reads and writes information in the display data storage unit DRM via the data input/output terminal DIO. The display data storage unit DRM has a display storage unit DM that stores 21 digits worth of content that can be displayed all at once on the display unit DSP. The stored contents of the display storage unit DM are given to the segment driver SED. The display elements of each digit in the display section DSP are activated by signals from output terminals S1 to S126. segment driver
When the display/erase control signal DIS from the input terminal DIS2 is logic "1" (hereinafter simply referred to as 1), the SED outputs a so-called ON waveform, causes the display unit DSP to perform display operation, and displays/ Erase control signal
DIS is logic “0” (hereinafter simply expressed as 0)
When this is the case, a so-called OFF waveform is output, and the display operation of the display unit DSP is stopped.

FIG. 4 shows a display example of a liquid crystal display using the display method according to the present invention. As an example, when displaying I, divide the display body in which each digit consists of 7 x 5 dots into upper and lower halves as shown in Figure 4a.
11F1144744 and code information, and send signals to the dot positions forming the letter I using segment signals S1 to S126 and counter electrode signals H1 to H7 based on the contents stored in advance in the storage device. Display is possible. As shown in Figure 4b, each digit of the code information is 0, 1, 2,..., 9, A,
B, . . . , F consist of a combination of 4 bits, each bit corresponding to a dot, and when each bit is 1, an ON waveform is output, and when each bit is 0, an OFF waveform is output.

In order to temporarily store these display data,
There is a display data storage DRM, and the DRM is stored in the fifth
As shown in the figure. As shown in the figure, code information individually corresponding to the character to be displayed in each digit is stored in areas 1 to 21, and blank information for one character is stored between each area. As shown in the figure, for example, code information corresponding to the letter I is in area 1.
11F1144744 is stored.

The 21-digit data stored in the display data storage unit DRM is stored in the display unit DSP, which has 21 display digits.
are displayed all at once. The external memory unit MU stores 21 digits of data in the same way as shown in Figure 5, so the display data storage section
A total of 42 characters can be stored in DRM and external memory unit MU.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the display state of the display unit DSP. In this example, the text “MAY IASK YOU TO POST THIS” consists of multiple characters.
LETTER? ” is displayed repeatedly.
A blank space of one character is interposed between words as a group as a group display section. The words in each group do not exceed 21 display digits. This article is in its entirety
There are 35 characters, which is smaller than the 42 characters that can be stored, and there are 7 blank spaces. Sentences should be less than 40 characters long, with at least two characters of space between each sentence, so that the sentence repeats. The display of characters is shifted such that a single word is always positioned at the end (right end in FIG. 6) of the display digits in the shift direction (left in FIG. 6).

7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the central processing unit CPU to achieve the displays shown in FIGS. 7 and 6. FIG.
Display data storage unit DRM and external memory unit
The above sentence is memorized in MU. Therefore, in the initial display state, characters are displayed across all display digits, as shown in FIG. 61. Therefore, in order to shift the word so that it comes to the end in the shift direction, the next operation step N
1 to N5 are performed.

First, in order to change from the display state shown in FIG. 61 to the state shown in FIG. 62, in step N1, the contents stored in the display data storage unit DRM and the external memory unit MU are concatenated, and the display state is changed by one digit in the shift direction. That is, the display data is shifted by 6 dots. Here, as shown in Figure 4a, the display body is 1 digit 7×
In addition to having a 5-dot configuration, it is divided into two parts at the top and bottom,
As shown in FIG. 5, display data is stored in upper and lower areas in DRM areas 1 to 21 according to the division. Therefore, the shift operation of display data specifically shifts the data corresponding to the lower half of the display digit by one dot, and similarly shifts the data corresponding to the remaining upper half of the display digit by one dot. The entire dot is shifted, and if it is shifted by six dots, the result is a one-digit shift operation. Next, in step N2,
It is determined whether the last digit to be displayed next in the shifted shift direction is a blank space as a group display section. If it is blank, the contents of the display data storage unit DRM are displayed for a certain period of time in step N3. If it is not a blank space, that is, if it is a character, the process returns to step N1 and the operation is repeated until a blank space is determined. After displaying for a certain period of time, the same operations as steps N1 and N2 are repeated at steps N4 and N5. In this way, the display states shown in FIGS. 6-2 to 6-4 are achieved, and a certain word is always displayed at the end of the display digit.

At the end of a sentence, four blanks are displayed at the end of the display digits as shown in FIG. ~N10 is performed.
That is, if there are two consecutive blanks, the process advances from step N5 to step N6. In step N6, in this example, the end of displaying the text is announced by displaying four blank spaces, so the number of blank digits is set to n=4.
, and put it in the counter CO. At step N7, shift by one digit, and at step N8, the counter
Countdown CO. At step N9,
Similar to step N2 described above, it is determined whether the last digit to be displayed next in the shift direction is blank. If it is blank, it is determined in step 10 whether the contents of the counter CO have become zero. If it is not zero, it is shifted by one digit again in step N7, and this operation is repeated. In step 10, if CO=0,
Returning to step N3, the state shown in FIG. 6 is displayed for a certain period of time.

After the sentence has been displayed, in order to repeat the display again, from the display state shown in FIG. , is displayed for a certain period of time, and the display state shown in FIG. 6 is reached based on the detection of a blank space corresponding to one character in the next group. In order to achieve this display, step N3
From N4 → N5 → N6 → N7 → N8 → N9 → N1
0→N7→N8→N9→N10→→N7→N8→
Proceed to N9. At step N9, the first character of the sentence, ie, "M" constituting "MAY", is detected, and the process returns from step N9 to step N3, where it is displayed for a certain period of time, but then steps N4→N5→N1→ Proceed to step N2
Then, a blank space corresponding to one character in the next group is detected, and the display shown in FIG. 6 is obtained. Thereafter, shift displays such as those shown in FIG. 6 and 7 are performed by the same operations as described above. Except when displaying a special symbol or the like, for all characters composed of 5x7 dots, one of the seven central vertical dots is activated. Therefore, if none of the seven vertical dots in the center of the 5×7 dots are activated, it is determined that the dot is blank.

If the number of characters to be displayed is small and the blank space between the end of the sentence and the beginning of the sentence continues too long when the sentence is displayed repeatedly, increasing the value n in step N6 in Figure 7 will help. Often this causes consecutive blanks to be shifted quickly. If this numerical value n is configured to be automatically set depending on the number of characters to be displayed, an easy-to-read display will always be obtained.
Such a configuration is easy for those skilled in the art.

In steps N1, N4, and N7 in FIG. 7, the display is shifted by one dot at a time, but the display may be shifted by one dot in the shift direction.

When shifting the contents of the memory, the display may be constantly displayed in a flowing manner without being erased once. A flowchart for realizing this is shown in FIG. At step N0, a display control flag N1 is set, a display/erase control signal DIS is output, and a display is performed. However, an actually visible display is achieved by stopping the shift for a certain period of time in step N3. In addition, the display is always displayed even during shifts such as steps N1 and N4, so
The display state feels as if it is running, and therefore the display becomes easier to see. Steps indicated by reference numerals N1 to N10 in FIG. 8 correspond to steps N1 to N10 in FIG. 7.

As described above, according to the present invention, since a single group is always displayed at the rear in the shift direction, it is possible to read each group, making it easy to understand the meaning and contents.

In particular, according to the present invention, the display is stopped for a certain period of time with the last grouped character being displayed and then shifted sequentially, making it possible to easily understand and display the meaning of each group that is stopped and displayed for a certain period of time. It is possible to obtain the effect that the entire contents of the information can be grasped very easily.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a front view of an electronic dictionary that performs display according to the display method of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a block circuit diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 3 is a display control circuit DSC.
The specific block circuit diagram in Figure 4 shows the display digit 5.
A diagram showing a display example in the case of ×7 dots,
Fig. 5 is a diagram showing the storage area of the display data storage unit DRM, Fig. 6 is a diagram showing the display state in the display unit DSP, and Fig. 7 is a diagram showing the central processing unit CPU for achieving the display shown in Fig. 6. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the central processing unit CPU according to another embodiment of the present invention. K...Key input section, CPU...Central processing unit, DSP
...display section, DSC...display control circuit, MU...memory unit, DRM...display data storage section.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A display section such as a liquid crystal display comprising a plurality of digits for displaying characters; a first storage section for storing data corresponding to the number of digits displayed in the display section; a second storage section for storing data exceeding the first storage section; and a display control circuit for displaying the data stored in the first storage section on the display section; The numbers are grouped so that they do not exceed the number of digits displayed on the display section, and are stored in the first and second storage sections with a space of one character interposed between each group to indicate the separation between the groups. In a display method in an electronic device such as an electronic dictionary when there are more characters to be displayed than display digits, the grouped characters stored in the first storage section are displayed all at once on the display section. a second step of connecting the first storage section and the second storage section and shifting the data of the second storage section to the first storage section by one digit; Whether the data located at the beginning of the second storage section that should be displayed next is a character or 1
a third step for determining whether there is a blank space for one character; a fourth step for sequentially shifting the data in the second storage section to the first storage section until it is determined that there is a blank space for one character; When a blank space in minutes is determined, the last of the grouped characters is displayed at the last digit position of the display section, and this display state is maintained for a certain period of time.
This display method is characterized by shifting the display for each group each time a blank space for one character is determined and maintaining the display state for a certain period of time.