JPH0650458B2 - Pattern information output device - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a pattern information output device configured to send various pattern information according to a specified pattern mode.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, there are many known devices that output pattern information in, for example, a dot expression format in order to form a desired pattern. Such a pattern information output device has an advantage that the output pattern can be easily changed even when forming many types of patterns. Dot refresh type
CRT display devices, wire dot printers, thermal printers, etc. are known as pattern output devices in the dot expression format.

In the dot refresh type CRT display device described above, a code is determined in advance for each pattern of specific characters and symbols, and pattern information (hereinafter, referred to as font) of specific characters and symbols is read according to the code and read. Fonts are temporarily stored in video RAM, and such pattern information is repeatedly read at high speed and displayed on the CRT.

When using a dot refresh type CRT display device, printer, etc., to underline characters or to make them thicker to emphasize them (hereinafter referred to as bold), the font is stored. In order to avoid an increase in the memory capacity, the pattern information read from the above memory is subjected to a predetermined image processing operation without separately storing the underlined font and the bold font, and the desired underline is added. Or it was transformed into bold. In addition, when inverting the contrast of characters, a predetermined process is performed in the same manner. The underline, bold, reverse display, etc. are generally called "attributes" of characters.

Now, as an example, a conventional technique for displaying "bold" which is one of the attributes of characters will be described. In this case, the font read from the memory is shifted by one dot to the left or right, the logical sum of the obtained font and the font before the shift is calculated, and the operation result is transferred to the video RAM. And realized a bold display.

However, the pattern information output device using such a method has the following drawbacks.

As shown in FIG. 2, when a minus sign (“-”) or the like is displayed in bold, it is difficult to determine whether or not it is in bold because the font is shifted by one dot in the horizontal direction. It was

When a small letter "m" (or "w", etc.) is displayed bold using a display with low resolution, the dots are adjacent to each other as shown in Fig. 3, and the characters themselves cannot be distinguished. Become.

[Object] In view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to provide a pattern information output device configured to send appropriate pattern information according to the attribute of a pattern without significantly increasing the capacity of the font memory. Especially.

In order to achieve such an object, a pattern information output device according to the present invention is a pattern storage that stores a character pattern of the first mode and a character pattern of the second mode for the same character code at corresponding address positions. Means and
When the character code is visually output in the first mode,
First control means for accessing a character pattern stored at a first address position of the pattern storage means,
When the character code is visibly output in the second mode,
A second address position different from the first address position is derived by a predetermined number corresponding to the character code, and the second character position stored in the second address position is accessed. And a means for outputting the character pattern of the first aspect or the character pattern of the second aspect from the pattern storage means by the first control means or the second control means. is there.

[Examples] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on Examples.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a pattern information output device to which the present invention is applied. This device includes a dot refresh type CRT display unit, as will be described later in detail.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a CPU (central processing unit) that controls the operation of the apparatus according to a predetermined control procedure (which will be described later with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6). Have. Reference numeral 2 is a common bus connected to the CPU 1, 3 is a CRT display section that displays a pattern by a raster scanning display method, 4 is a display control section that sends CRT dot refresh type pattern information to the display section 3, and 5 is a CRT
Is a video RAM (random access memory) capable of storing a display dot pattern corresponding to one screen and enabling high-speed repetitive reading. Reference numeral 6 denotes a ROM (Read Only Memory), which is a memory area PR in which a sequence to be executed by the CPU 1 (for example, the procedure shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6) is stored, a normal character font (first Area 1CPR storing 1 character pattern), area 2CPR storing bold type font (second character pattern) of a predetermined character, and area storing attribute conversion table ATT-CNV described later. .

FIG. 4 shows the "attribute conversion table" (hereinafter referred to as the ATT-CNV table) used in this embodiment, and the ROM shown in FIG.
The contents are stored in 6. The data shown in this ATT-CNV table is based on the conventional dot shift technology (Figs. 2 and 3).
The character codes of characters that cause various problems when the bold display is performed using (see the figure). This character code represents the ASCII code in hexadecimal display ("H" in the lower right of each code shown in the ATT-CNV table represents hexadecimal display). However, ATT-CN
FF _H shown at the end of the V table is data for indicating the end of the table.

The character code used in this embodiment is the same as the ASCII code up to "7F _H ". The character code after "80 _H " is used as a new character code peculiar to this embodiment. That is, in the ATT-CNV table shown in FIG. 4, a new character code “80 _H ” is assigned to the first ASCII code “23 _H ” (representing “#”), and the second ASCII code shown in FIG. A new character code "81 _H " is assigned to the code "2B _H " (representing "-"), and similarly, a new character code is assigned to the ASCII code "6D _H " (representing "m") shown below. Assign the character code “8C _H ”.

In this embodiment, normal character fonts are continuously stored every 16 bytes (one character) from the address FC000 _H of the ROM 6 (see FIG. 1). Therefore, the bold font of "23 _H " (representing "#") shown in the first of the ATT-CNV table corresponds to the new character code "80 _H ", so FC000 _H +80 _H * 10 _H It consists of 16 bytes starting from the address of ROM6 (* means x).

Also, the second "2B _H " in the ATT-CNV table
The bold font (representing "-") corresponds to the new character code "81 _H ", so it is composed of 16 bytes starting from the address of ROM6 FC000 _H +81 _H * 10 _H.

Similarly, “6D _H ” shown in the 13th column of the ATT-CNV table
Bold font of ( "m" represents a) is because it corresponds to the new character code "8C _H", consists of 16 bytes starting from the address of FC000 _H + 8C _H * 10 _H becomes ROM 6.

As for the normal “m” that does not display bold, its ASCII code is “6D _H ”, so it is composed of 16 bytes starting from the address of ROM6 FC000 _H + 6D _H * 10 _H.

The flowcharts shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 show the control procedure for performing bold display using this embodiment.

The operation of this embodiment will be described below with reference to the ATT-CNV table shown in FIG.

First, a procedure for displaying a bold alphabet "A" will be described.

ASCII code "41 _H " of alphabet "A" is ATT-C
It is determined whether or not it is stored in the NV table (step S1).

Since the code "41 _H " is not stored in the ATT-CNV table, the font "A" is read from ROM6 by using the above-mentioned conventional technique (dot shift method shown in FIGS. 2 and 3). A pattern (Fig. 2, 3
(Refer to the drawing) and the bold display of the alphabet "A" is performed on the CRT (step S2).

Next, a case of displaying the lowercase letter "m" of the alphabet will be described.

In this case, since the ASCII code "6D _H " indicating the alphabet "m" is stored in the ATT-CNV table (step S1), the process jumps to the subroutine shown in FIG. 6 (step S3).

That is, if the alphabet "m" is displayed in bold using the conventional technique, clear characters cannot be obtained.
The following processing is performed.

The register BL (see FIG. 1) is used as a pointer indicating each data position in the ATT-CNV table. First, the register BL is cleared (step S4) to indicate the first stored data " _23H ".

Then, the content of the register BL is incremented until the character code indicated by the register BL and the character code "6D _H " of "m" match (steps S5, S6).

When the character code of the character (m) to be displayed in bold is found on the ATT-CNV table (BL = OC _H ), a new character code (80 _H + BL = 8) is added as described above.
Setting the _{0 H + OC H = 8C H} ). In other words, the conventional ASCII code is converted into a new character code as the bold display code of the alphabet "m" (step S
7).

ROM corresponding to the newly set character code (“8C _H ”)
Transfer from the address _{(FC000 H + 8C H * 10} H = FC8CO H) Bold displaying font (e.g., having a dot arrangement shown in FIG. 7) to VRAM5 reads performs normal CRT display (step S8). Therefore, in this case, the conventionally known bold processing such as lateral shift of dots is not performed.

In the embodiment described above, the bold display is performed for the character by the dot display. However, in the case of underlining, the reverse display, and also in the case of forming a general image pattern. Of course, the present invention can be applied.

[Effect] As described above, according to the present invention, a memory address of a character pattern to be output can be obtained by a predetermined number determined corresponding to a predetermined character code. A special effect that can be obtained is obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing an entire embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are dot configuration diagrams for explaining the drawbacks of image processing according to the prior art, and FIG. 4 is a special block diagram used in this embodiment. A table showing the table, FIGS. 5 and 6 are flowcharts for explaining the control procedure of the present embodiment, and FIG. 7 is a dot configuration diagram showing an example of bold display in the present embodiment. 1 ... CPU, 2 ... Common bus, 3 ... CRT display section, 4 ... Display control section, 5 ... Video RAM, 6 ... ROM.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A pattern storage unit for storing a character pattern of the first aspect and a character pattern of the second aspect for the same character code at corresponding address positions, and the character code in the first aspect. In case of visible output,
First control means for accessing a character pattern stored at a first address position of the pattern storage means, and visually outputting the character code in the second mode,
A second address position different from the first address position is derived by a predetermined number corresponding to the character code, and the second character position stored in the second address position is accessed. By the control means and the first control means or the second control means,
Means for outputting the character pattern of the first aspect or the character pattern of the second aspect from the pattern storage means.