GB1363910A - Data processing apparatus arranged for text processing - Google Patents

Abstract

1363910 Digital computers; text processing program INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP 25 Nov 1971 [21 Dec 1970] 54697/71 Heading G4A A digital computer executes a text processing program. A variable symbol is used for items of an ordered sequence which are used in the text stream and this variable symbol is adjusted to specify the item from the ordered sequence which is eventually desired for the text stream as it is printed. Prior to final printing the variable symbol is translated into the item from the ordered sequence that it represents and that item is formatted according to retained sequence characteristics and is inserted into the text stream for the printing operation. Typical ordered sequences may be tables, footnotes, drawings, &c. for a printed text. For example, if there were originally a sequence of twenty drawings and two were to be deleted during editing, the numbers of the other drawings would be updated by the program without any intervention by the author. In one embodiment sequences of graphic forms are represented by symbolic sequence commands in the text stream. The commands are variable and initially cause the system to assign the storage location for sequence codes in that command. The location is identified by a usage identifier in the command and, thereafter, a sequence command containing that usage identifier will operate on codes in the assigned storage location. The usage identifier is indicative of a specific use of a sequence in the text stream, e.g. numbering drawings. The sequence codes contain one or more of the following types of data; sequence item identifiers, conversion codes and formatting characteristics. A conversion code identifies the sequence which contains the sequence item and the identifier indicates which item in the sequence is to be inserted into the text stream in place of the sequence command. When a sequence command occurs in the text stream, the system first updates previously stored sequence codes at the identified location, then decodes the sequence codes and then places the sequence item in the text stream. The system will also respond to a reference command to store at a reference location a particular sequence item or the sequence codes identifying that sequence item. Thereafter, in a subsequent portion of the text, this reference may be recalled and the sequence item inserted into the text. As the reference commands are symbolic they automatically adjust if additional sequence commands are inserted in the previous part of the text. Hardware, Fig. 1.-A conventional computer system is used having core storage, disc files, tape drives, a paper tape punch and reader, a keyboard through which text material and text composition commands may be entered, and a printer.