JPH0154719B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a loading method for loading character patterns to a large number of terminal devices connected to a control device.

Conventionally, in this type of terminal device, each terminal device has a small-capacity nonvolatile memory, and character patterns recorded in the memory are used to perform processing operations. However, when attempting to process kanji using this method, each terminal device must be equipped with a large capacity memory, resulting in the disadvantage that the system itself becomes extremely expensive and complex. Therefore, each terminal device is equipped with a small-capacity volatile memory, and the character patterns necessary for the work are loaded from the large-capacity non-volatile memory such as the character generator on the control device side via the host line as necessary. A method has been proposed, but this method has the disadvantage that the host line is occupied during loading to one terminal device, making it impossible to perform processing operations on other terminal devices.

Therefore, the present invention provides a control device, a master terminal device connected to the control device by a line, and a slave terminal device connected to the master terminal device by a line, and the master terminal device is configured to control character patterns. It has a stored memory, a display device that displays character patterns read from the memory, and a switch that switches the line connected to the slave terminal device between the line connected to the memory and the line connected to the control device. , the slave terminal device has a memory into which a character pattern is loaded, and a display device that displays the character pattern read from the memory, and when the memory of the slave terminal device requires loading of a character pattern, The switch of the master terminal device is switched to the memory side connected to the memory, and when data transfer with the control device is required, the switch of the master terminal device is configured to be switched to the line side connected to the control device, It is an object of the present invention to provide a character pattern loading method that eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be specifically explained based on an embodiment shown in the drawings.

The calculation processing system 1, as shown in FIG.
It has a control device 2, and the control device 2 is provided with a center computer 3 and a terminal controller 5 connected to the computer 3. The controller 5 is connected to a plurality of master terminal devices 7 via a line 6, and the master terminal device 7 includes a display device 9 and a large-capacity non-volatile memory 10 such as a character generator in which character patterns are recorded in advance. is provided. Slave terminal devices 13 and 15 are connected to the terminal device 7 via switches 11 and 12 and lines 14 and 14, and actuators 11a and 12a of the switches 11 and 12 are connected to the terminal 11.
When tilted to the terminals b and 12b, the terminal devices 13 and 15 and the host line 6 are connected; when tilted to the terminals 11c and 12c, the terminal devices 13 and 15 and the nonvolatile memory 10 are connected
connects. As shown in FIG. 2, the terminal devices 13 and 15 are provided with a memory control section 16, and a code buffer 17 and a small-capacity volatile memory 19 are connected to the control section 16. The memory 19 is connected to the buffer 17 via the screen control unit 20.
The memories 19 and 21 and the control section 20 are connected to a display device 23 via a display buffer 22.

Since the present invention has the above configuration, when performing calculation processing using each terminal device 7, 13, 15, the master terminal device 7 exchanges data with the control device 2 via the host line 6. The device 7 is able to use all the character patterns recorded in the memory 10, so that all the operations of the system 1 can be carried out immediately. On the other hand, the slave terminal devices 13 and 15 are also connected to the control device 2 via the line 6 by switching the switches 11 and 12 to the terminals 11b and 12b, and the signal from the control device 2 is transmitted to the memory control section 1.
6, the code enters the code buffer 17, is converted into a character pattern in the nonvolatile memory 21 by the screen control section 20, is displayed on the display device 23 via the display buffer 22, and is processed. At this time, since only character patterns commonly used in normal processing operations are recorded in the nonvolatile memory 21, the devices 13 and 15 can only perform a limited number of operations as they are. Now, hypothetically,
When it becomes necessary for the device 13 to perform work using the character pattern recorded in the memory 10 of the master terminal device 7, the switch 11 is turned to the terminal 11c side to connect the memory 10 and the device 13. In this state, the master terminal device 7 loads character patterns necessary for the operation of the device 13 in the memory 10 into the volatile memory 19 via the memory control unit 16. When loading is completed, the switch 11 falls to the terminal 11b side, and the terminal device 13 is connected to the host line 6 again. Then, the screen control unit 20 can convert the signal from the control device 2 into a character pattern in the memories 19 and 21 and display it on the display device 23.
Various tasks that cannot be performed using the memory 21 alone can be performed. Also, if another character pattern in the memory 10 is required, flip the switch 11 to the terminal 11c side as described above, and
By having the character pattern applied to a predetermined task loaded from 0 into the memory 19,
can be used. Note that during loading, the slave terminal device 13 being loaded is connected to the memory 10 and cannot be used, but the other slave terminal devices 15 and all memory terminal devices 7 are controlled via the host line 6. Since it is connected to the device 2, processing operations can be performed freely.

In addition, the slave terminal device 13 during loading
Also, by increasing the loading speed from the memory 10 to the memory 19 than the normal line speed, the loading time of the device 13, that is, the unusable time can be shortened. The above is exactly the same for the slave terminal device 15, and loading the character pattern into the memory 19 of the device 15 is done by switching the switch 12 to the terminal 12b.
This is done by tilting the terminal 12c toward the terminal 12c.

In the above embodiment, the master terminal 7 is provided with a large-capacity non-volatile memory 10 such as a character generator, but the memory 10 of the master terminal 7 is a large-capacity volatile memory, and the control device 2 terminal controller 5
A non-volatile memory 25 such as a large-capacity character generator is installed in the memory 25, and necessary character patterns are loaded from the memory 25 to the memory 10 using the idle time of the host line 6, and further character patterns are recorded. Of course, it is also possible to configure the data to be loaded from the memory 10 to the memory 19 of each slave terminal device 13, 15. In this case, since loading to the memory 10 is carried out in small increments using the idle time of the host line 6, not only does it not interfere with the processing work of other terminal devices, but also the loading to the memory 25, which has a larger capacity than the memory 10, is performed in small increments. By installing this in the control unit 2, it becomes possible for the system 1 to perform a wider variety of operations without significantly expanding the scale of the system 1. Further, in the above embodiment, the volatile memory 19 and the non-volatile memory 21 are provided in each slave terminal device 13, 15. Of course, all character patterns may be loaded from the memory 10 of the master terminal device 7.

Furthermore, by configuring the line to increase the transfer speed during loading, the time occupied by the line for loading can be reduced. Furthermore, the memory of the master terminal device 7 is configured with a rewritable memory, and character patterns are once loaded from the host side to the master terminal device, and the slave terminals are configured to further load the loaded patterns at a timely manner. In this way, inexpensive RAM can be used as the memory of the master terminal device.

As explained above, according to the present invention, the slave terminal devices 13 and 15 load the character patterns necessary for the task from the large capacity memory 10 of the master terminal device 7 according to the task, so that all the terminal devices There is no need to provide a large-capacity memory, and a system for processing kanji characters can be assembled at a relatively low cost and with a simple configuration. Also, from the master terminal device 7 to each slave terminal device 13,
Since loading to the slave terminal device 15 is performed without using the host line 6, the loading to the slave terminal device 13,
15 does not interfere with the processing operations of other terminal devices. Furthermore, by making the memory 10 of the master terminal device 7 a non-volatile memory in which character patterns such as character generators are recorded, there is no need to use the host line 6 for all loading operations, and the work of the system 1 as a whole is reduced. can be carried out extremely efficiently.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a calculation processing system to which the present invention is applied, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of each slave terminal device. 1... System, 2... Control device, 6... Line, 7... Master terminal device, 10... Memory, 11, 12... Switch, 13, 15... Slave terminal device, 14... Line, 19 ...Memory (volatile memory).

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A control device, a master terminal device connected to the control device via a line, and a slave terminal device connected to the master terminal device via a line, the master terminal device comprising: a memory in which the pattern is stored; a display device that displays the character pattern read from the memory; and a switch that switches the line connected to the slave terminal device between the line connected to the memory and the line connected to the control device. , and the slave terminal device has: a memory into which a character pattern is loaded; a display device that displays the character pattern read from the memory; and the memory of the slave terminal device requires the character pattern. If necessary, switch the master terminal device to the memory side connected to the memory side, and if data transfer with the control device is required,
A character pattern loading method characterized in that a switch of a master terminal device is configured to be switched to a line side connected to a control device.