JPH11327725A - Information processing system, message display control method used for the same and recording medium for recording control program therefore - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a basic input/output system(BIOS) system dealing with many languages to be easily and simply provided without providing a language interpreter. SOLUTION: It is specified so that a used language is discriminated from a keyboard, and a BIOS message is displayed in a language corresponding to the language ID(identification information). The BIOS stores BIOS output messages of several kinds of main languages and selects a message interface to be provided to a user by referring to a country ID and a language ID of a keyboard of an input device 5. Also, by referring to information of a nonvolatile RAM 3, the BIOS sets the degree of freedom for message interface selection by a user customize set. Thus, automatic recognition multilingualism for the BIOS is enabled.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing system, a message display control method used therefor, and a recording medium on which a control program is recorded, and more particularly to a multilingual BIOS system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional information processing system, a BIOS (Basic Inpu
t / Output System) is an interface generally displayed in English. The BIOS in this conventional information processing system is a firmware (FW) program that is important for operating a system that mediates an interface with hardware (HW) as basic input / output processing to display system information and failures by initial diagnosis. It is.

[0003] However, this conventional technique has a problem that it is difficult to understand the meaning of the message because it supports only the standard English display. In addition, there is also a problem that important information is missed because only English display is supported and the amount of messages is small.

[0004] Furthermore, since there is no interface for simple identification, even if a message other than English is displayed, user setting is required, and there is a problem that the operation becomes inconvenient.

Therefore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 7-160487 discloses a menu in each application program,
A language interpreter having a translation function is provided in advance so that character strings such as dialogues and messages can be easily supported in multiple languages, and character strings such as menus, dialogues, and messages are translated and processed by the interpreter. Is disclosed.

[0006]

However, according to the technique disclosed in the above publication, it is necessary to provide a language interpreter having a translation function in advance for multilingual support. Therefore, the number of programs is increased. There is a disadvantage that it is uneconomical in cost.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a multilingual BIOS system that can easily and easily support a multilingual system without providing a language interpreter. An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing system that can be realized, a message display control method used for the information processing system, and a recording medium that records the control program.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an information processing system in which messages used in the BIOS are automatically switched to a corresponding language display, a message display control method used therefor, and a recording recording the control program thereof. Is to provide a medium.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided an information processing system having a basic input / output system corresponding to a plurality of languages, wherein a message for a basic input / output system corresponding to each of the languages is stored in advance. Means, language discriminating means for discriminating the language of use of the input device based on language identification information preset in the input device, and a display for reading and displaying a message corresponding to the discriminated use language from the storage means. An information processing system characterized by including control means is obtained.

[0010] Country identification information is set in the input device in addition to the language identification information, and the language determining means determines the language to be used based on the language identification information and the country identification information. In the case where the language used by the language discriminating means is an unsupported language not stored in the storage means, the display control means displays a message to that effect. The feature is that it is made in English. Furthermore, the present invention is characterized in that the language used can be set by user setting.

According to the present invention, there is provided a message display control method in an information processing system having a basic input / output system supporting a plurality of languages, wherein a used language preset in an input device is displayed in response to system startup. A check step of checking language identification information, a determination step of determining a language used by the input device based on the language identification information, and a display step of reading and displaying a message corresponding to the determined usage language from storage means. And a message display control method characterized by including the following.

[0012] Then, the checking step also checks country identification information preset in the input device,
The determination step is characterized in that the language used is determined based on the country identification information and the language identification information, and the display step stores the language used in the determination step in the storage unit. When not stored, the indication to that effect is made in English.

According to the present invention, there is provided a recording medium in which a program for a message display control method in an information processing system having a basic input / output system corresponding to a plurality of languages is recorded. A checking step of checking language identification information indicating the language used, a determining step of determining the language of use of the input device based on the language identification information, and storing a message corresponding to the determined usage language. And a display step of reading and displaying the program from a storage medium.

The operation of the present invention will be described. Input devices, such as keyboards, usually have the most popular key codes and key arrangements in their country, and use different ones depending on the country and language used. The BIOS message is displayed in a language corresponding to the language ID (identification information).
The BIOS stores BIOS output messages in several major languages. The BIOS refers to the country ID and language ID of the keyboard, which is an input device, and selects a message interface to be provided to the user. Also, BIOS
Refers to NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) information to provide a degree of freedom in selecting a message interface by user customization setting. Thus, B
Enables automatic recognition and multilingualization of IOS.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic system configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, an embodiment of the present invention is a BI
A processor 1 operating under the control of an OS program;
A flash ROM 2 for storing an IOS, an NVRAM 3 for storing system-specific information, a display device 4, an input device 5 such as a keyboard, a main memory 6, and an external storage device 7 such as a hard disk drive storing the OS.
And a bus 10 for interconnecting these components.

The flash ROM 2 stores BIOS messages in several languages, together with various functions of the BIOS. By identifying a country ID / language ID provided from the input device 5 (mainly a keyboard), The language for the display message on the display device 4 is automatically changed.

Further, the language B which is particularly required on the user side
In consideration of the use of the IOS message, a menu that can be set by a user is added in BIOS setup, which is an interface for changing various functions of the BIOS. The set value is stored in the system management NVRAM3, and is referred to by the BIOS immediately after the power is turned on to switch the display message.

Next, the overall operation of the present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. Here, a keyboard is used as an input device. It is assumed that check flags for operation branching (keyboard error flag, user language setting flag, multilingual function flag, error language identification code flag, etc.) are stored in the NVRAM 3 for system management.

First, referring to FIGS. 2 and 3, after the power is turned on, the system initial diagnosis program (POS
T) operates (step S1), and it is checked whether a keyboard is connected (step S1). If the keyboard is not connected, a keyboard error flag indicating that a keyboard error has occurred is set (step S3), and then English, which is the default message language, is selected to prevent the multilingual function of the BIOS from operating. Clear the language function flag (step S
4). Thereafter, a normal screen display process is executed (step S13).

The connection of the keyboard is determined, for example, by
It is possible to detect the potential of the pin using a connector pin which is an interface for connecting a keyboard, and other known methods can be used.

If it is determined in step S2 that the keyboard is connected, a user language setting flag for setting whether or not the user has been set is checked, and the user selects a language selected by the user through BIOS setup. It is checked whether the setting is used (step S5). If the user setting has been made, a multilingual function flag, which is a flag for checking the operation of the multilingual function, is set (step S6), and it is checked whether the language set by the user is supported by the BIOS (step S7).

If the user language setting flag is not set (step S5), it is checked whether or not a country identification code, which is a country identification code, is detected from the interface provided on the keyboard (step S8). If the country identification ID is not detected, English as the default message language is selected, and the multilingual function flag is cleared so that the multilingual function of the BIOS does not operate (step S4). Thereafter, a normal screen display process is executed (step S1).
3).

When the country ID is detected (step S
8) Set the multilingual function flag (step S9)
A language ID, which is a language identification code, is acquired by an interface provided on the keyboard, and it is checked whether the code is a valid code (step S10). If not valid, select English as the default message language and B
The multilingual function flag is cleared so that the multilingual function of the IOS does not operate (step S4). Thereafter, a normal screen display process is executed (step S13).

If the language identification code is valid (step S10), the language identification code is stored in the NVRAM 3 (step S11), and the language identification code is stored in the BIO.
It is checked whether or not S corresponds (step S7).
When the BIOS message of the language corresponding to the language identification code is not stored in the BIOS, the selected language is
An error language identification code flag indicating that the multilingual function is not supported by the BIOS is set (S12), English is selected as the default message language, and the multilingual function flag is cleared so that the multilingual function of the BIOS does not operate. (Step S4). Thereafter, a normal screen display process is executed (step S13).

If the language code is supported by the BIOS (step S7), a VGA (Video Graphic Arra
y) Set screen display control such as initialization (Step S)
13) Check whether the multilingual function flag is set (step S14). If the multilingual function flag is not set, the normal system BIOS
Return to the processing (step S18). If the multilingual function flag is set, the above-mentioned error language identification code flag is checked (step S15).

Here, if the error language identification code flag is set, "Multi Language installed" /
"But not support Language Type" / "Set the Defa
ultLanguage ”and an English message that is a default language (step S16). If the error language identification code flag is not set, a message such as “multi-language function operation” / “the currently selected language is XXX” is displayed on the screen in the language corresponding to the set language code ( Step S17).

Next, it is checked whether the above-mentioned keyboard error flag is set (step S19). If the flag is set, a keyboard error is displayed on the screen (step S20), and the system is stopped (halted) (step S20). S21). If the keyboard error flag has not been set, the OS
A start (boot) is prompted (step S22).

Next, message display control will be described with reference to FIG. As shown in FIG. 4, when the message display routine is called (step S31), first, the multilingual function flag is checked to determine whether the multilingual function is valid (step S32). If the multilingual function flag is not set, the multilingual function is invalid, so the default message is displayed by the conventional message display function (step S34), and the process returns to the original processing (step S39).

If the multi-language function flag is set, the multi-language function is valid, so that the language identification code value, which is the language code stored in the NVRAM 3 set in the BIOS processing, is extracted (step S35). The base address value of the flash ROM 2 storing the display message is calculated from the language identification code (step S36). Using the offset value (pointer of the display message), which is an argument when the message display routine is called, and the base address, a message in the target language is extracted (step S37), and the screen is displayed (step S38). Return to (Step S3
9).

By changing the base address of the pointer in this manner, multilingual display can be easily performed.

Next, an actual message display is shown in FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 5, as an example, the languages supported by the BIOS are English, French, and Spanish. However, the procedure is the same, and the language can be added as long as the data storage section of the flash ROM 2 is empty.

When "25" is stored in the language identification code, this value indicates English. If English, the base address (English) in FIG. 5 is calculated from the language identification code value, and when the screen display routine is called, a pointer to the message is created by adding the offset value of the argument. . That is, when the offset value is "10h", a message "message2 (English)" is displayed on the screen.

Similarly, if the language identification code is "26" and French is indicated, the base address (French) is calculated, and when the offset value is "10h", the message displayed on the screen is English. "Message2 (English)" in French and has the same meaning as "message2 (French)". It is clear that the same applies to Spanish.

The keyboard, which is the input device 5, usually has the most popular key codes and key arrangements in the country and uses different ones depending on the country and the language used. It is a specification to be determined. In this case, as a method of identifying the language to be used, identification ID information is stored in a register or the like in advance on a keyboard, and this is stored in a system initial diagnosis program PO.
The reading may be performed by ST, but the present invention is not limited to this, and various modifications are possible.

[0036]

The first effect is that the BIOS can support languages of various countries. The reason is that the BIOS stores messages for each country.

The second effect is that the language can be automatically selected without any particular user's hand. The reason is that the input device (keyboard etc.) has an ID for identification.
It is because it incorporated.

The third effect is that the second message such as a Japanese message
Byte code can be easily prepared. The reason is that the message area can be set by flexible offset address specification.

A fourth effect is that a language can be arbitrarily selected. The reason is that the language setup menu is incorporated in the BIOS setup.

The fifth effect is that the system setting by the BIOS setup can be easily understood. The reason is that messages such as a setting menu and help are displayed in a language that the user is familiar with, so that the meaning is easy to understand.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic system configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a storage structure of a BIOS message.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Processor 2 Flash ROM 3 System management NVRAM 4 Display device 5 Input device 6 Main memory 7 External storage device

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An information processing system having a basic input / output system corresponding to a plurality of languages, wherein a storage means for pre-stored a basic input / output system message corresponding to each of the languages, Language discriminating means for discriminating the language used by the input device based on the language identification information, and display control means for reading and displaying a message corresponding to the discriminated working language from the storage means. Information processing system. 2. The input device is set in advance with country identification information in addition to the language identification information, and the language determination means determines the language used based on the language identification information and the country identification information. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein: 3. The display control means, if the language determined by the language determination means is an unsupported language that is not stored in the storage means, displays the indication in English. The information processing system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: 4. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein said language can be set by user setting. 5. A message display control method in an information processing system having a basic input / output system corresponding to a plurality of languages, wherein language identification information indicating a use language preset in an input device in response to system startup is provided. A checking step of checking, a determining step of determining a language used by the input device based on the language identification information, and a displaying step of reading and displaying a message corresponding to the determined working language from the storage unit. Characteristic message display control method. 6. The checking step also checks country identification information preset in the input device, and the determining step determines the language to be used based on the country identification information and the language identification information. 6. The message display control method according to claim 5, wherein: 7. The method according to claim 7, wherein, if the language used in the determination step is not stored in the storage unit, the display step displays the information in English. 7. The message display control method according to 5 or 6. 8. A recording medium in which a program for a message display control method in an information processing system having a basic input / output system corresponding to a plurality of languages is recorded, wherein a use preset in an input device in response to system startup. A check step of checking language identification information indicating a language; a determination step of determining a language used by the input device based on the language identification information; and a message corresponding to the determined usage language read out from the storage means and displayed. A recording medium on which a program including a display step is recorded.