.

Umted States Patent [19]

[11]

4,328,557

Gastinel

[45]

May 4, 1982

[54]

PROCESSOR CIRCUIT FOR VIDEO DATA

3,786,429

1/1974 Goldman et a1.

364/900

TERMINAL

3,810,107 3,822,363

5/1974 Goldman et al. 7/1974 Moyer et al.

364/200 340/748 X

1

‘

[75]

Inventor:

[73]

Ass‘gnee-

.

Jean Gastinel, Pans, France

_

3,848,232 11/1974 Leibler et a1.

.

3,984,638 10/1976

Thmmmcsp, Pans’ France

[2]] Appl_ No‘; 152,883

4,070,710 1/1978 Sukonick et a1.

[22]

4,071,910

Filed.

May 23 1980

.

[63]

[30]

,

Celia """""""""""""""""""" ]

. .

, 340/799,

364/200 MS File, 900 MS File;

358/85, 903; 340/720, 724, 725, 748, 799; 179/2 TV

[56]

References Cited U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 3,593,310

7/1971

340/724 X

1/1978 Stockebrand et a1. ............ .. 364/900

a teleph?m set an‘; a st?ndfard televisionan recFiver, for in ormation

‘permitting t e exc ange 0 data wit

displaying pages of alphanumeric text on the television

screen, either block by block or in continuous manner,

circuitry for generating and displaying a writing cursor which indicates the position of the letter which is to be written or changed, circuitry for erasing parts or all of the screen and all of these circuits being so connected as to operate in time-shared manner with the line scan

Kievit ................................ .. 364/900

3,654,611 4/1972 Bluethman et al. 3,706,075 12/1972 Fredrickson et a1.

BLRNK,

Assistant Examiner—Thomas M. Heckler Attorney‘ Agent’ 0' Flrm'Edwm E‘ Gmgg [57] ABSTRACT An electronic data processor, for use with a keyboard,

system. The electronic processor includes circuitry for

. .................................. ..

[58] Field of Search

179/2 TV X

.......... .. 364/200

Primary Examiner—Gareth D. Shaw

Related Us. Application Data Continuation of Ser. No. 379,974, Feb 22, 1157s, abandoned. Foreign Application Priority Data

Feb. 23, 1977 [FR] France .............................. .. 77 05254 [

.......... 1. 364/200

Carrouge

4,057,349 11/1977 Ying et a1.

frequency of the television receiver.

364/200 364/900

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1

4,328,557

PROCESSOR CIRCUIT FOR VIDEO DATA TERMINAL

system for communication by means of a video screen.

This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 879,974, filed Feb. 22, 1978, abandoned.

Furthermore, the circuitry according to the invention is capable of being included in a large scale integration processor in a single integrated circuit block.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to data display terminals, in particular video terminals for the visual display of infor

2

and means for producing a specialized processor of high ?exibility and capability associated with a limited num ber of standard M.S.l. components and capable of per forming the required functions to permit a very ?exible

person to communicate, for example with a computer located at some distance via data communication lines,

OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is thus a principal object of the present invention to describe an electronic processor suitable for large scale integration and capable of association with a commer cial television receiver and a standard electronic key

for example commercial telephone lines. The invention

board as well as a telephone set. It is a second object of

relates particularly to a video terminal which employs

the present invention to provide an electronic processor of the above-described type which coordinates the functions of the video display, the keyboard and the telephone set in a general manner, permitting the re ceipt and sending of coded messages such as in codes commonly known as ASCII, EBDIC, BAUDOT, etc. It is a further object of the invention to thus provide a

0

mation on a cathode ray tube. Video terminals of the type to which this invention relates may be used by a

as its display device a television receiver. Known data terminals usually include a console with

some type of cathode ray screen, a keyboard for writing various messages, commands and other control infor mation and may have an acoustical coupler which per mits the transfer of information to and from the data

terminal via commercial telephone lines. The acoustic coupler normally accepts the handset portion of a stan

video data terminal which has high performance but

dard telephone set permitting the acoustical exchange

25 low. Furthermore it is an object of the invention to

of signals with the telephone set. The type of data termi nal referred to above has a large number of applications,

provide a data terminal which can be easily transported and has a large number of optional features which per mit its use by a very general segment of the populace. The processing circuit according to the present in

whose acquisition cost and usage costs are relatively

among which are the interrogation of an interaction with data banks, the transmission and exchange of com munication, the dialogue with a computer, process con trol and numerous others. Generally, it is desirable if

vention accomplishes the following principal tasks: 1. Coding and decoding of signals from an external

these data terminals are easily transported but they may also be permanently installed.

source of coded messages,

2. Classi?cation of coded messages according to their

nature, i.e. characters, control signals, and commands, 3. Storage of messages,

While there appears to be a universal utility for these

data terminals, their general use in public is still limited because of the relatively high cost of acquisition. In order to lower the overall cost of this type of equip ment, it has been proposed to employ as the visual dis

4. Display of characters on a cathode ray tube (CRT) to form a readable text.

The display functions of the data terminal include the

following:

play device a commercial television receiver for dis

playing written text and graphical symbols. Ordinary television receivers are produced in vast numbers and are generally accessible to any potential user of data terminals. Inasmuch as the majority of potential users thus has

40

Displaying a relatively high number of characters for each line of text and a relatively large number of lines of text per page; To display texts at a high refreshment rate without

?ickering;

access or possession of a television set and normally can 45 To display a blinking writing cursor which can be dis placed to any part of the screen; make use of a standard telephone set and because the

keyboard itself is not a very high-priced item, it would be possible to considerably lower the cost of a data terminal if an electronic processor were designed which would appropriately combine the functions of these various elements to produce a data video terminal

To handle a large number of text pages, either singly or catenated in continuous manner;

Automatic scrolling, i.e. roll-up of the next page of text; Partial or complete erasure of rows of characters dis played on the screen.

A particular feature of the present invention is that its prinicpal functions, i.e. the writing in memory and the reading/display are performed in time-share with the general area of performing the required processing tasks on a data terminal. The ?rst of these makes use of uni 55 line sweep cycle of the television receiver, thereby permitting a high rate of information flow. versal microprocessors, generally known under the It is another characteristic feature of the invention acronyms M.P.U., C.P.U., etc. Such microprocessors

which has high flexibility for handling various types of data. Two principal concepts stand out for use in the

may be coupled with standard components and can be

programmed, thereby giving the system in which they are used a great deal of ?exibility but incurring a sub stantial cost. The second concept aims at providing a

specialized processor for a particular application. Such a processor is constructed by judicious combination of circuit elements which may include those of medium scale integration (M.S.I.) so that the overall ?exibility

and performance of the processor is limited but the attendant cost is reduced. The present invention differs from these two concepts in that it describes a method

that the time base which conrols the television sweep rate and the display time rate for the text characters are

pseudosynchronous, making it possible to arbitrarily alter the size of the displayed characters. A still further feature of the invention is that the processor can include random access memories (RAM),

of either static or dynamic type. When dynamic memo ries are used, the processor permits the refreshing of the characters stored in memory. Yet another characteristic of the invention is that the architecture of the processor is such as to permit large

3

4,328,557

scale integration (LSI), due especially to the choice of the logical circuits and the small number of input/out put lines.

4

letters, numerals, punctuation signs and other symbols. The size of the cathode ray tube is entirely determined by the convenience of the user, i.e. by the distance at which the TV screen is normally placed from the key

The invention will be better understood as well as

further objects and advantages thereof become more apparent from the ensuing detailed description of a

board. Further considerations may be whether the ter minal is ?xed or mobile and if it is to be supplied by preferred exemplary embodiment of the invention taken battery power or by line power. in conjunction with the drawing. A standard subscriber telephone set 2 having a hand set 3 with a speaker and a microphone connected by a BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 10 cable 4 to the telephone network. FIG. 1 is an illustration showing the various elements An acoustic coupler 5 permitting communication associated with the processor of the invention to pro between the telephone set 3 and the electronic proces vide a video terminal; sor 7. The presence of the coupler 5 is optional if the FIG. ZA-C are block diagrams illustrating the major processor is directly connected to the telephone or to sub-assemblies of the processor portion of the invention; the system with which the user wishes to communicate. FIGS. 3a and 3b are diagrams illustrating the format A standard keyboard 6 having, for example 52 keys ing of the text displayed on the cathode ray tube; and including coding electronics. The keyboard serves FIG. 4 illustrates the manner in which the writing to edit the text and to provide commands to the proces cursor operates;

FIG. 5 is an illustration to aid the description of page 20

sor.

A processor 7, shown here as a single circuit board which is connected to the other elements of the terminal FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating page scrolling; by a cable R which leads to the television receiver 1. FIG. 7 is a detailed block diagram illustrating the The cable includes a UHF modulator 8 and a coaxial processor architecture in terms of functional blocks; antenna coupling 9. A cable C connects the keyboard to FIGS. 80 and 8b are illustrations of the time base 25 the processor, while a cable T connects the processor to generators and of the timing diagrams associated there

concatenation;

the telephone assembly. If the television receiver 1 is of the type which has a direct video input or if its place is taken by a standard display terminal, such as a profes circuits in the read/display mode; FIG. 10 is a logical circuit diagram of a temporal 30 sional video monitor operating at commercial television norms, the UHF modulator 8 may be omitted. detection circuit; The terminal according to the present invention may FIG. 11, consisting of a and b, is an illustration of the have other con?gurations, in particular it may include part of the processor producing page movement; several cathode ray tubes, the addition of a luminous FIG. 12 is an illustrtion of circuitry providing address

with;

FIGS. 90 through 9e illustrate the memory address

generation; FIG. 13 is a simpli?ed illustration of address circuits

for the writing means; FIG. 14a illustrates circuitry which generates a sim

ple writing cycle; FIG. 14b is an associated timing dia gram;

FIG. 15 illustrates circuit elements for generating

complex writing cycles; FIG. 16 illustrates circuit elements for generating and

35

writing wand, a printing mechanism, etc. FIG. 2 is an overall block diagram of the major sub

assemblies of the processor 7 in FIG. 1. It will be seen

that the processor comprises three major parts: The ?rst part A includes a UART for placing in parallel or in series data received on the entry/exit buses. The UART may be of the type AY-5-l0l3, mar

keted by the ?rm General Instruments Company and it

receives, for example, messages produced by the key

board and is associated with a sending and receiving modem 11, for example an integrated circuit of the type MC 14-412 marketed by the ?rm Motorola as well as text on the screen; with a clock circuit 12, for example an integrated circuit FIGS 18a and 18b are illustrations of circuitry for of the type MC l44ll marketed by the ?rm Motorola. joining pages of text indicating the manner of concate The second major subassembly of the processor is the nation; FIG. 180 is a timing diagram of associated sig 50 part B which includes processing circuits for various nals; signals and which will be described in greater detail FIG. 19 is a variant embodiment of the manner of below. moving a page of text; The third major sub-assembly of the processor 7 is the FIG. 20 is an illustrative description of the architec part C which includes a memory 20 for storing charac ture of the integrated processor; and ter codes in binary form and a character generator 21. FIG. 21 is an overall diagram illustrating an example With the exception of a small number of standard of the application of a processor according to the inven components, the part B of the processor is a single pack tion. age such as that labeled 10 in FIG. 1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED The major connections between the sub-assemblies EMBODIMENT are the following:

displaying the writing cursor;

FIG. 17 is an illustration of elements for moving the

Turning now to FIG. 1, there will be seen an overall

The output bus Bo from the keyboard, the input bus

illustration of the various elements which cooperate to form a data display terminal according to the present invention. The terminal includes or is associated with

B1 for coded messages into the processor, the address bus B2 for the charcter memory 20, the address B3 for

the following major components: A standard television receiver 1 of any commercial design, either black-and white or color. The TV set serves for the display on its screen of various characters,

the character generator 21, the data input bus B4 for the 65 character memory 20, the connection B5 between the

memory 20 and the character generator. The major output signals from the processor are these: