CA1222060A - Display type dictionary apparatus - Google Patents
Display type dictionary apparatusInfo
- Publication number
- CA1222060A CA1222060A CA000468712A CA468712A CA1222060A CA 1222060 A CA1222060 A CA 1222060A CA 000468712 A CA000468712 A CA 000468712A CA 468712 A CA468712 A CA 468712A CA 1222060 A CA1222060 A CA 1222060A
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- CA
- Canada
- Prior art keywords
- page
- letter
- word
- dictionary
- words
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Expired
Links
Abstract
ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE
A display-type dictionary apparatus includes a letter signal generator. The letter signal generator generates letter signals which correspond to the input letters. A
letter/page converter is provided for converting the letter signals into a predetermined page. The contents of the predetermined page are displayed on a screen through a page recorder for storing pages.
A display-type dictionary apparatus includes a letter signal generator. The letter signal generator generates letter signals which correspond to the input letters. A
letter/page converter is provided for converting the letter signals into a predetermined page. The contents of the predetermined page are displayed on a screen through a page recorder for storing pages.
Description
~ Z2ZO~
:L'ITLE 0~ THE INVENTION
~ISPLAY I'YP~ DICTIO~AR~ APPA~ATUS
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a display type dictionary apparatus having a recording means such as a microfilm, floppy disc, optical disc file or the like which records and stores the contents of each page of a docl~ment such as a dictionary or an encyclopedia which contains words arranged alphabetically, in the order of the Japanese syllabary or another suitable order. The apparatus further has word inputting key means and a screen-type display means. In operation, the content of any desired page of the document is displayed for the user's inspection on the display means as the page is designated through the key means.
Using a dictionary involves troublesome work of turning the leaves back and forth to find the desired word while comparing the spelling of the word with those of other similarly-spelled words which are arranged in a predetermined order. This work is quite time-consuming, although the required time depends on the degree of mastery.
Recently, a device called a "word translator" has been developed and sold in which, for example, equivalent words in one language are displayed in response to inputting of the characters of words in another language. This word translator, however, displays only the translated (equivalent) words. In using of a dictionary or a ~ t~
~2~6~
encyclopedia, it is preferable tha~ the user can see not only the meaning of the word in question but also other information such as illustrations or pictures, explanation, derivatives, idioms or related words, and so forth. From this point of view, it would be very helpful if the content of each page were displayed instantaneously in response to the inputting of a word.
SIJMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above, the present invention provides a display-.ype dictionary apparatus which basically comprises a key means through which a word is inputted; a numericalizing means for converting the inputted word into a numerical signal for the selection of the page on which the word appears; a page recording means in which the contents of a multiplicity of pages are recorded in such a manner as to permit the selection of a page in response to the numerical signal; and a screen-type display means for displaying the content of the selected page.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a display-type dictionary apparatus comprising: a letter signal generating means having keys for inputting desired letters and for generating letter signals corresponding to the inputted letters; a letter/page converting means for converting said letter signals into numerical values which are beforehand determined in accordance with the order of word arrangement in a dictionary, and for converting the numerical values into lZ220~
predetermined page designating signals a page recording means adapted to produce page content signals representing the contents of pages of said dictionary, in response to said page designating signals; and a screen-type display means for displaying the contents of the pages in response to said page signals from said page recording means.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DE~AWING
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description made with reference to the accompanying drawing in which:
The attached Figure is a schematic perspective view of an embodiment of the apparatus of the invention.
DESC~IPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIl~ENT
The principle and a practical embodiment of the invention will be described hereinunder.
The principle of the invention is as follows.
Needless to say, in dictionaries and encyclopedias, words are arranged in a predetermined order. For instance, in a dictionary containing words constituted of alphabetic letters, the word "a'l comes first followed by words starting "aa" and then by words starting "ab". In addition, there is a fixed order between any two words. Namely, the word "all"
always preceedes the word "alone". According to the invention, when any desired word is spelled by means of letter keys, i.e., when a signal constituted by the letters which form the word is input, a numerical value peculiar to ~ZZZ~;)6~3 the input is prod~ced. ~n acldi~ion, there is a functional rule that the numerica~ value ccrresponding to a word is always greater than the numerical value corresponding to a word which precedes the first-mentioned word in the dictionary.
More specifically, representing the numeral obtained through inputting of "all" by F(all) and the numeral obtained thro~lgh inputting of "alone" by F(alone) 9 a relationship expressed by F(all) < F(alone) exists without fail. In the invention, a function Y=F(word) is determined such that the above-mentioned relationship always exists between any two different words. Consequently, the function value successively increases in accordance with the order in which the words appear in the dictionary. This means that each page contains words of a predetermined range of function values.
According to the invention, therefore, a digital output "p" is obtained in response to the inputting of words which satisfy the following conditions:
F(p-l) < Yp ~ F(p) on condition of 2 ~ p Y(l) ~ F(l) on condition of p = 1 where, Yp: function value obtained when the last word appearing on the p-th page is input;
F(p~ function value obtained when the last word appearing on (p-l)th page is input.
2Z (1!6~D
The invention will be more fully understood from the following description of an embodiment.
The program of the apparatus of the invention is arranged to numericalize the word to be found, i.e., the 5inputted elementary signals, and establishes a functional rule such that the function values Y corresponding to different words are increased or descreased in accordance with the order of arrangement of words in a dictionary, such that the value Y corresponding to a given word is always 10greater than that of a word preceding the given word. A
practical example of such a program will be shown below7 For simplification of explanation, assume here a dictionary which contains only four-character words composed from only 9 (nine) alphabetic letters a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h and i.
15In this embodiment, the letters a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h and i are represented by numerals 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 respectively. Then, the word "abed" is expressed numerically as 1,2,5,4, while the word "acid" is expressed as 1~3,9,4. The numeral in the first place is multiplied by 20103, the numeral in the second place is multiplied by 102, the numeral in the third place is multiplied by 10, and the numeral in the fourth place is multiplied by 10. The sums of the results of multiplication, given as numerical values 1254 and 1394, represent and identify the words "abed" and 25"acid", respectively, and show the order of these words in the arrangement of the words in the dictionary.
Thus, all words composed of four characters from the 9 (nine) alphabetic letters can be replaced by numerical ~Zz~60 values having four digits or places. These numerical values also express the order of these words in the word arrangement of the dictionary.
This basic concept applies also to the case where the dlctionary contains the words composed of 1 (one) to 3 (three) characters from the 9 (nine) letters. Namely, in the case of a word composed of 3 (three) characters, the first, second and third letters are represented by the numerals mentioned before, while 0 (zero) is used for representing the fourth place. Similarly, in case of a word having 2 (two) characters, 0 (~ero) is used for representing the third and fourth places and, in case of a word composed of only one character 0 (zero) is used for the second, third and the fourth places. Thus, the word "a" is expressed by 1000.
By numericalizing the words in accordance with the above-explained rule, all of the words contained in the dictionary are identified by corresponding numerals which range between 1000 and 9999.
According to the rule explained above, the group of words contained on each page of the dictionary is reduced to a group of numerals arranged in a fixed order.
In the apparatus of the lnvention, therefore, a digital value "1", representing the first page, is alloted to all words which are represented by numerals between 1000 and a certain numeral e.g., 1200 when the last word appearing in the first page is "ab". Similarly, a digital value "2" representing the second page is alloted to all of ,06~) the words corresponding to a second group of numerals. In this manner, the apparatus of the invention is beforehand arranged such that a digital value "p" is alloted to the words corresponding to a group of numerals which satisfy the following condition:
F(p-l) < y < F(p) Needless to say, this arrangement must correspond to the arrangement of the words in the dictionary.
In the case of an ordinary dictionary containing words composed of 26 alphabetic letters, the principle explained hereinbefore applies, although the arrangelnent is somewhat more complicated than in the case of words composed from 9 letters as described by way of example above. Namely, in the case of an ordinary dictionary, numerals are used for representing the alphabetic letters, i.e. as "1" for "a", "2" for "b", and so up to "26" for "z". Experience shows, however, that ordinary words contained by a dictionary can be identified almost perfectly by the first to sixth letters constituting the beginning part of each word. That is, very rarely are two words having the same first to sixth letters but different meanings contained on different pages of a dictionary. The function values corresponding to the words composed of 6 (six) or less letters are numerals having 6 (six) digits in accordance with 27 notation.
Practically, however, the spelling of the last word on a page is identical to that of the first word on the next ~2~2~6~
page~ Namely, the designation of page by digit signal may involve a ~-page error because it is quite probable that the definition of a word will start at the end of one page and end at the beginning of the next page. According to the invention~ therefore, the key means is provided with a function for allowing the user to turn the pages back and forth.
A practical embodiment of the screen display type dictionary apparatus of the invention will be explained hereinunder with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The attached Figure is a schematic perspective view o~
an embodiment of the invention. The apparatus is basically composed of a letter signal generating means (key means) 1, letter/page converting means 2, page recording means 3, and a screen-type display means 4.
The letter signal generating means l has a keyboard including keys la corresponding to letters such as alphabetic letters or Japanese "hiragana" letters, each key being adapted to generate a particular signal. When the apparatus of the invention is designed to make selective use of two or more dictionaries, the letter signal generating means 1 is provided with keys for selecting the dictionary to be used.
The letter/page converting means 2 is connected through a signal cable 5 to the letter signal generating means. This letter/page converting means includes a means for converting letter signals to corresponding numerical values and a means for converting the numerical values into z;~ o page designating signals representing the numbers of the pages containing the desired words in the selected dictionary. Thus, the letter/page converting means produces a page designating signal in response to the word input through the key means.
The page recording means 3 is composed of a suitable recording medium such as a microfilm, floppy disc, optical disc file and so forth. The contents of the dictionaries are stored beforehand in such a recording medium in a page-by-page fashion. The page recording means 3 is connected to the letter/page converting means 2 through a signal cable 6, so that it outputs the content of the page designated by the page designating signal from the converting means.
The screen-type display means 4 is connected through a signal cable 7 to the page recording means 3 so that it can display the content of the designated page transmitted from the page recording means 3 through the cable 7.
Needless to say, the aforementioned means 1 to 4 may be constructed as a unit, although they are illustrated as separate units for the simplification of explanation.
:L'ITLE 0~ THE INVENTION
~ISPLAY I'YP~ DICTIO~AR~ APPA~ATUS
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a display type dictionary apparatus having a recording means such as a microfilm, floppy disc, optical disc file or the like which records and stores the contents of each page of a docl~ment such as a dictionary or an encyclopedia which contains words arranged alphabetically, in the order of the Japanese syllabary or another suitable order. The apparatus further has word inputting key means and a screen-type display means. In operation, the content of any desired page of the document is displayed for the user's inspection on the display means as the page is designated through the key means.
Using a dictionary involves troublesome work of turning the leaves back and forth to find the desired word while comparing the spelling of the word with those of other similarly-spelled words which are arranged in a predetermined order. This work is quite time-consuming, although the required time depends on the degree of mastery.
Recently, a device called a "word translator" has been developed and sold in which, for example, equivalent words in one language are displayed in response to inputting of the characters of words in another language. This word translator, however, displays only the translated (equivalent) words. In using of a dictionary or a ~ t~
~2~6~
encyclopedia, it is preferable tha~ the user can see not only the meaning of the word in question but also other information such as illustrations or pictures, explanation, derivatives, idioms or related words, and so forth. From this point of view, it would be very helpful if the content of each page were displayed instantaneously in response to the inputting of a word.
SIJMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above, the present invention provides a display-.ype dictionary apparatus which basically comprises a key means through which a word is inputted; a numericalizing means for converting the inputted word into a numerical signal for the selection of the page on which the word appears; a page recording means in which the contents of a multiplicity of pages are recorded in such a manner as to permit the selection of a page in response to the numerical signal; and a screen-type display means for displaying the content of the selected page.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a display-type dictionary apparatus comprising: a letter signal generating means having keys for inputting desired letters and for generating letter signals corresponding to the inputted letters; a letter/page converting means for converting said letter signals into numerical values which are beforehand determined in accordance with the order of word arrangement in a dictionary, and for converting the numerical values into lZ220~
predetermined page designating signals a page recording means adapted to produce page content signals representing the contents of pages of said dictionary, in response to said page designating signals; and a screen-type display means for displaying the contents of the pages in response to said page signals from said page recording means.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DE~AWING
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description made with reference to the accompanying drawing in which:
The attached Figure is a schematic perspective view of an embodiment of the apparatus of the invention.
DESC~IPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIl~ENT
The principle and a practical embodiment of the invention will be described hereinunder.
The principle of the invention is as follows.
Needless to say, in dictionaries and encyclopedias, words are arranged in a predetermined order. For instance, in a dictionary containing words constituted of alphabetic letters, the word "a'l comes first followed by words starting "aa" and then by words starting "ab". In addition, there is a fixed order between any two words. Namely, the word "all"
always preceedes the word "alone". According to the invention, when any desired word is spelled by means of letter keys, i.e., when a signal constituted by the letters which form the word is input, a numerical value peculiar to ~ZZZ~;)6~3 the input is prod~ced. ~n acldi~ion, there is a functional rule that the numerica~ value ccrresponding to a word is always greater than the numerical value corresponding to a word which precedes the first-mentioned word in the dictionary.
More specifically, representing the numeral obtained through inputting of "all" by F(all) and the numeral obtained thro~lgh inputting of "alone" by F(alone) 9 a relationship expressed by F(all) < F(alone) exists without fail. In the invention, a function Y=F(word) is determined such that the above-mentioned relationship always exists between any two different words. Consequently, the function value successively increases in accordance with the order in which the words appear in the dictionary. This means that each page contains words of a predetermined range of function values.
According to the invention, therefore, a digital output "p" is obtained in response to the inputting of words which satisfy the following conditions:
F(p-l) < Yp ~ F(p) on condition of 2 ~ p Y(l) ~ F(l) on condition of p = 1 where, Yp: function value obtained when the last word appearing on the p-th page is input;
F(p~ function value obtained when the last word appearing on (p-l)th page is input.
2Z (1!6~D
The invention will be more fully understood from the following description of an embodiment.
The program of the apparatus of the invention is arranged to numericalize the word to be found, i.e., the 5inputted elementary signals, and establishes a functional rule such that the function values Y corresponding to different words are increased or descreased in accordance with the order of arrangement of words in a dictionary, such that the value Y corresponding to a given word is always 10greater than that of a word preceding the given word. A
practical example of such a program will be shown below7 For simplification of explanation, assume here a dictionary which contains only four-character words composed from only 9 (nine) alphabetic letters a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h and i.
15In this embodiment, the letters a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h and i are represented by numerals 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 respectively. Then, the word "abed" is expressed numerically as 1,2,5,4, while the word "acid" is expressed as 1~3,9,4. The numeral in the first place is multiplied by 20103, the numeral in the second place is multiplied by 102, the numeral in the third place is multiplied by 10, and the numeral in the fourth place is multiplied by 10. The sums of the results of multiplication, given as numerical values 1254 and 1394, represent and identify the words "abed" and 25"acid", respectively, and show the order of these words in the arrangement of the words in the dictionary.
Thus, all words composed of four characters from the 9 (nine) alphabetic letters can be replaced by numerical ~Zz~60 values having four digits or places. These numerical values also express the order of these words in the word arrangement of the dictionary.
This basic concept applies also to the case where the dlctionary contains the words composed of 1 (one) to 3 (three) characters from the 9 (nine) letters. Namely, in the case of a word composed of 3 (three) characters, the first, second and third letters are represented by the numerals mentioned before, while 0 (zero) is used for representing the fourth place. Similarly, in case of a word having 2 (two) characters, 0 (~ero) is used for representing the third and fourth places and, in case of a word composed of only one character 0 (zero) is used for the second, third and the fourth places. Thus, the word "a" is expressed by 1000.
By numericalizing the words in accordance with the above-explained rule, all of the words contained in the dictionary are identified by corresponding numerals which range between 1000 and 9999.
According to the rule explained above, the group of words contained on each page of the dictionary is reduced to a group of numerals arranged in a fixed order.
In the apparatus of the lnvention, therefore, a digital value "1", representing the first page, is alloted to all words which are represented by numerals between 1000 and a certain numeral e.g., 1200 when the last word appearing in the first page is "ab". Similarly, a digital value "2" representing the second page is alloted to all of ,06~) the words corresponding to a second group of numerals. In this manner, the apparatus of the invention is beforehand arranged such that a digital value "p" is alloted to the words corresponding to a group of numerals which satisfy the following condition:
F(p-l) < y < F(p) Needless to say, this arrangement must correspond to the arrangement of the words in the dictionary.
In the case of an ordinary dictionary containing words composed of 26 alphabetic letters, the principle explained hereinbefore applies, although the arrangelnent is somewhat more complicated than in the case of words composed from 9 letters as described by way of example above. Namely, in the case of an ordinary dictionary, numerals are used for representing the alphabetic letters, i.e. as "1" for "a", "2" for "b", and so up to "26" for "z". Experience shows, however, that ordinary words contained by a dictionary can be identified almost perfectly by the first to sixth letters constituting the beginning part of each word. That is, very rarely are two words having the same first to sixth letters but different meanings contained on different pages of a dictionary. The function values corresponding to the words composed of 6 (six) or less letters are numerals having 6 (six) digits in accordance with 27 notation.
Practically, however, the spelling of the last word on a page is identical to that of the first word on the next ~2~2~6~
page~ Namely, the designation of page by digit signal may involve a ~-page error because it is quite probable that the definition of a word will start at the end of one page and end at the beginning of the next page. According to the invention~ therefore, the key means is provided with a function for allowing the user to turn the pages back and forth.
A practical embodiment of the screen display type dictionary apparatus of the invention will be explained hereinunder with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The attached Figure is a schematic perspective view o~
an embodiment of the invention. The apparatus is basically composed of a letter signal generating means (key means) 1, letter/page converting means 2, page recording means 3, and a screen-type display means 4.
The letter signal generating means l has a keyboard including keys la corresponding to letters such as alphabetic letters or Japanese "hiragana" letters, each key being adapted to generate a particular signal. When the apparatus of the invention is designed to make selective use of two or more dictionaries, the letter signal generating means 1 is provided with keys for selecting the dictionary to be used.
The letter/page converting means 2 is connected through a signal cable 5 to the letter signal generating means. This letter/page converting means includes a means for converting letter signals to corresponding numerical values and a means for converting the numerical values into z;~ o page designating signals representing the numbers of the pages containing the desired words in the selected dictionary. Thus, the letter/page converting means produces a page designating signal in response to the word input through the key means.
The page recording means 3 is composed of a suitable recording medium such as a microfilm, floppy disc, optical disc file and so forth. The contents of the dictionaries are stored beforehand in such a recording medium in a page-by-page fashion. The page recording means 3 is connected to the letter/page converting means 2 through a signal cable 6, so that it outputs the content of the page designated by the page designating signal from the converting means.
The screen-type display means 4 is connected through a signal cable 7 to the page recording means 3 so that it can display the content of the designated page transmitted from the page recording means 3 through the cable 7.
Needless to say, the aforementioned means 1 to 4 may be constructed as a unit, although they are illustrated as separate units for the simplification of explanation.
Claims
The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:
A display-type dictionary apparatus comprising:
a letter signal generating means having keys for inputting desired letters and for generating letter signals corresponding to the inputted letters;
a letter/page converting means for converting said letter signals into numerical values which are beforehand determined in accordance with the order of word arrangement in a dictionary, and for converting the numerical values into predetermined page designating signals;
a page recording means adapted to produce page content signals representing the contents of pages of said dictionary, in response to said page designating signals;
and a screen-type display means for displaying the contents of the pages in response to said page signals from said page recording means.
A display-type dictionary apparatus comprising:
a letter signal generating means having keys for inputting desired letters and for generating letter signals corresponding to the inputted letters;
a letter/page converting means for converting said letter signals into numerical values which are beforehand determined in accordance with the order of word arrangement in a dictionary, and for converting the numerical values into predetermined page designating signals;
a page recording means adapted to produce page content signals representing the contents of pages of said dictionary, in response to said page designating signals;
and a screen-type display means for displaying the contents of the pages in response to said page signals from said page recording means.
Applications Claiming Priority (2)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| JP97269/1984 | 1984-06-28 | ||
| JP9726984U JPS6112142U (en) | 1984-06-28 | 1984-06-28 | Screen display dictionary device |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA1222060A true CA1222060A (en) | 1987-05-19 |
Family
ID=14187810
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000468712A Expired CA1222060A (en) | 1984-06-28 | 1984-11-27 | Display type dictionary apparatus |
Country Status (2)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| JP (1) | JPS6112142U (en) |
| CA (1) | CA1222060A (en) |
Family Cites Families (1)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPS57174768A (en) * | 1981-04-17 | 1982-10-27 | Sharp Corp | Information retrieving device |
-
1984
- 1984-06-28 JP JP9726984U patent/JPS6112142U/en active Pending
- 1984-11-27 CA CA000468712A patent/CA1222060A/en not_active Expired
Also Published As
| Publication number | Publication date |
|---|---|
| JPS6112142U (en) | 1986-01-24 |
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Legal Events
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|---|---|---|---|
| MKEX | Expiry |