DE2751313A1 - CONTROL UNIT FOR COLOR TV DISPLAY - Google Patents

Description

Control unit for color television display

The invention relates to the control of a Video display of a color television receiver. In particular, the invention relates to a device intended to do so is to be connected to the antenna terminals of a standard color television receiver so that a Color display can be generated. The color display includes imagery that is selectable by the user of the device can be operated. These control devices are particularly useful as entertainment devices, although they are not limited to it.

In a control apparatus for a television ^{display, it is desirable to generate the necessary signals 1} for the color display in order to provide an arrangement which is more visually appealing and which can change in color. With

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PHONE (ORO)

MONACAT

To an external television control device, for example for games, a standard color television receiver can show image devices corresponding to a playing field, players, a game piece, the score and a background on the screen, all in different colors or partly in black and white.

Accordingly, it is to provide bearing signals an object of the present invention to provide an improved control device for the television display for generating color information.

These and other objects of the invention are achieved by determining a plurality of discrete sample positions or parts of the television raster, each such discrete part having at least two memory bits in a η f. · ?. Spoich-jr with arbitrary access (RAU) can be assigned. Color control can be achieved by reading the information stored in the memory bits in synchronism with the scanning of the discrete raster portion corresponding to those memory bits. The information stored in the two memory bits defines a color for the display. In this way, the information contained in the two or more memory bits is decoded in order to determine the color for the display at the corresponding grid position, and an appropriate video signal is generated by the control device. A microprocessor can manipulate the image devices for display on the grid by setting the values stored in the memory bits for the television grid. The microprocessor is program controlled to compute the movement of the imaging devices for display.

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A chroma control word can be used for , each line of the ad is provided on the television grid to add a different signal to each of the discrete parts across a corresponding line of the display. This signal can represent a background color and is fed to a decoder which has the assigned Color is determined and a corresponding signal is generated.

A preferred idea of the invention resides in a control device for a color television display for gaming of television games. The device generates video signals for an image to be displayed on the raster, with the image in a plurality of discrete parts is divided, which have an equal number of scanning positions on the Rastor match. Each of these parts are at least two bits one in a memory with an arbitrary Access (IiAI-I) associated with stored information. The bits of information are synchronized in parallel with the scanning of the corresponding position on the grid had read. The two or more bits of information stored are decoded, do the phase shift of the color subcarrier to determine which one is fed to the television receiver to display a color image at the corresponding position of the haster. The information stored in the memory bits of the RAM is controlled by a microprocessor, which in turn is programmatic. The microprocessor brings each memory bit in accordance with the changes in the display you want on the TV screen to be up to date.

In the description of the preferred embodiment, reference is made to the accompanying drawings.

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Show it:

1 shows a block diagram of a television control device according to the present invention, in which two RAI-I are used to generate the signal carrying the color information;

Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a television control apparatus in accordance with the present invention including a chroma control word apparatus for generating signals carrying color information;

Figure 3 is a block diagram of a digital phase shifting network used in an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is an illustration of a digitally phase shifted Rectangular oscillation and

Fig. 5 is a block diagram of an analog m phase-shifting network, which is used in another embodiment of the present invention.

In the preferred exemplary embodiment, an external television control device determines a plurality of discrete scanning positions on the television grid, and each of the determined scanning positions divides at least two memory positions of an HAH, reads the information stored in the bits in synchronism with the scanning of the raster, determines the identity of a color from the information thus read and generates a suitable video signal for display at the determined scanning position.

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A system that also determines a large number of discrete scanning positions is disclosed in application P 26 09 826.0 entitled "Image Controller For Use With A Television Receiver", assigned to the same applicant as the present application goes back. The device described in the application P 26 09 826.0 contains .Each of the elements shown in Fig. 1 except the parts for identifying, producing and mixing the color, i.e., besides the RAM 232, the decoder 114, the phase shifting one Network 110 and the mixer 112. As will be explained, these additives for color can at least do that Requirement of the in Fig. 3 of the above-mentioned application Make video generator 56 shown superfluous. This unimproved system only generates luminance information for display on conventional television receivers and sees conventional horizontal flyback and blanking pulses as well as vertical Synchronx3ier-KÜcklaui-Au3tastimpulse with the video information interspersed in the same way as if the signal were passed through a distant one TV channels would have been generated.

In the United States, a television raster contains horizontal lines repeated at 30 Hz (in reality 265 »5 lines, odd / even nested and repeated at 60 Hz repetition rate). Each horizontal line takes 63 »5 microseconds to scan left to right and return to the beginning of a new line. At the end of each horizontal line, the receiver is given a horizontal flyback and blanking pulse so that the receiver is synchronized for the next line, whereupon the process is repeated. At the end of the 262.5 lines, the beam is at the bottom of the raster and a vertical retrace and blanking pulse is sent, causing the beam to reach the

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Top of the truck returns. The active display of the beam moving horizontally from left to right takes about 53 microseconds. The system described in the application P 26 09 826.0 "digitizes" the television raster by dividing each of the horizontal scanning periods into a number of discrete periods, ie that each horizontal line is divided into a number of discrete lines or positions. Each of the horizontal bars is subject to program control, whereby a generated high-frequency carrier is modulated and the receiver is instructed whether it should light up or not. Thus, one system used with the present invention includes a display RAM 32 which is random access memory for storing at least as much information or bits of data as the number of horizontal bars in an image of the television receiver picture . In each aciv ^ poic ^^ x'pläo ^ G of the IiArI 3-- a binary "1" or "0" is stored with those bits which are assigned to the desired picture which is to be displayed on the television screen. As a result, the RAM 32 can be viewed as a digital representation of the current image to be displayed in the black and white system.

The information stored in the display RAM can be read bit by bit from the RAM 32 or written into the RAM 32. The controller therefore includes a RAM address circuit 34 which can selectively and individually address any memory location in RAM 32 so that data can be read from RAM 32 for display purposes or written into RAM 32 to change the current display.

A television interface circuit 36 causes the RAM address circuit 3 ^ 1 to scan each memory location in RAM 32 in succession. The television interface circuit 36 also provides the necessary horizontal and vertical sync pulses

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for the television receiver 30. This translates the television interface circuits 56 converts the multitude of data bits in RAU 32 into a composite video sense that is intended for the television receiver 30 is suitable, which means that the RAM 32 saved "image" can show.

A RAH write control circuit 38 enables data to be written into the RAIl 32 can be written to the display on the television screen to change. The write control circuit 38 can control of the RAM address circle 3 ^ if necessary the image data stored in the RAH 32 is up to date To bring stand.

The "intelligence" of the system is provided by a microprocessor 40 operates, which works in connection with a memory, which stores a read-only (ROH) 42a and a RAM 42b contains. The microprocessor 40 is responsive to the game controls on a control panel 20 and continuously interrogates the control panel to receive commands for changing the displayed image. Programming the microprocessor 40 is explained in more detail in the application P 26 09 826.0. Basically, the microprocessor 40 calls when you enter a Command on the control panel 20 to change an existing position in the image device is one stored in the ROM 42a Program and use the program to determine the new image position. Using the RAM write control 38 and the RAM address circle 34, the microprocessor 40 erases the old one Image representation in the display RAM 32 and replaces it with a new image representation in the appropriate memory locations.

Proper scanning of the display RAM 32 requires that each bit of information be read exactly when the

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Sti'ahl the television tube overqi'ed that line of the screen, which corresponds to this bit. To this end, the RAM 32 is scanned by a horizontal counter and a Vertical counter controlled, both operated by a clock. For example, if every horizontal line is divided into 132 time elements or bars, then counts the horizontal counter in equal growth rates from 1 to 132, when the beam moves across a horizontal line. The transfer from the horizontal counter is fed to a vertical counter, which similarly generates a binary output on 8 output lines that represents which of the 262.5 horizontal lines is scanned. This sets the values that occur at the outputs of the horizontal and vertical counters Binary numbers represent horizontal and vertical addresses of the discrete bars just scanned at any given time the term "address" includes the location of a location in RAM 32 which is a picture position with respect to the television screen is equivalent to.

As stated above, the clock circuit for the Talctgeber is contained in the television interface circuit 36, which generates suitable horizontal and vertical synchronizing signals. These necessary video signals are generated by synchronizing generator circuits contained in the interface circuits 36 which cooperate with a video generator ( not shown in FIG. 1). The video generator also receives the binary information read from the display RAM 32 and consequently receives all of the required television clock pulses and a binary signal representing the desired state (blanked or not blanked) of the bar scanned by the television beam. The video generator sums these signals

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aui "to generate a composite signal, which then is modulated onto a suitable carrier frequency for a selected channel. Preferably this one should be in the area of the operated device may be the unused channel.

In such a television control device, only luminance information is provided generated, whereby the applicability of the control is limited to black and white displays.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present Invention, an additional RAM 232 (which is identical to RAM 32 can be) used to store digital information, which together with the information in RAM 32 is the desired Represents color for each particular discrete sample position on the grid. Although in the preferred embodiment two separate RAMs are used, it should be noted that the invention only has one RAM to provide at least requires two bits of memory for each particular sample position. This can be done by using a number of separate ones RAKs can be achieved as shown in Fig. 1, or by allocating at least 2 storage locations in a larger one Display RAM at each particular sample position. By adding other display RAMs (and the extra memory bits for each display position of the grid contained therein, a further variety in the choice of colors can be brought about. Thus, the use of two display RAMs in Fig. 1 is only illustrative.

The display RANs can be identical and operated together with the other display RAMs via a common main line . The data in each of the memories is

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lel read out, the readout in the same way proceeds as described above for the display RAM 32. As a result, the RAM address circuit 34 is sequentially scanned each set of storage locations in the display RAMs in synchronism with the scanning of the particular corresponding one Grid positions. The two display RAMs are read in parallel and generate a signal that is one of the four "colors" are identified for each sample position.

Table I.

Color RAM 32 RAM

A 1 1

B 1 0

C 0 1

DOO

As shown in the table above, when the RAM address circuit 32 causes a binary "1" to be read from the RAM 32 and a binary "1" from the RAM 232, then the one assigned to the RAM address circuit 34- is determined decoder 114, that the color A ^"11 is intended to be displayed on that .Abtastposition of the receiver 30, the data bits corresponding to these two. the decoder 114 provides by conventional means, the color that is displayed by the read information from the RAMs and controls the appropriate phase shifted video signal generated by the phase shifting network 110. The phase shifted color subcarrier is fed to a mixer 112 which does the horizontal and vertical synchronizing and

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and blanking pulses from television interface circuit 36 united with the bearer of the Parb. The output of mixer 112 becomes the antenna connections of the television receiver 30 supplied.

The phase shifting network 110 may be conventional digital or analog version. As shown in Figures 3 and 4, a digital phase-shifting Conventional type network using a free running oscillator 500 operating at about 14-3 MHz is working. The high frequency signal is fed to a logic divider circuit 502 which has four separate signals Q1, Q2, Q1 and Q2 are generated, each of which is a quarter the frequency of the output of the oscillator 500 and which are phase shifted from one another by 90 ° or a multiple thereof. These four signals are fed into a low pass filter staw 504 which is some of the harmonics filters out and generates a sinusoidal oscillation. The filtered output variables are determined by the system-controlled analog switches that are assigned to the decoder 114.

Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 5, a conventional analog phase-shifting network can be used. A 3.58 MHz sine wave oscillator 66 generates a signal which is fed to a first buffer amplifier 602, the two signals phase-shifted by 180 ° with respect to each other in generated at the same frequency. The output of amplifier 602 becomes a 90 ° phase shifting RLC network 604 and then fed to a second buffer amplifier 606 to receive two other signals having a frequency of 3.58 MHz with phase shifts of 90 ° or 270 °. These four signals are transmitted through the decoder 114 associated analog switch is controlled as described above. It is understood that the phase shifting Mechanisms are conventional in nature and are intended to be illustrative only and that other equivalents to the

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present invention can be used. For example, phase-locked loops or analog devices connected in series, which delay the burst signal by a predetermined time, for generation an appropriate phase shifted carrier signal can be used.

As a result, there is a color identifier for each image made for each particular display part of the receiver 30. Since the states of the display are in successive images, i. H. when moving an image on the display screen must change the color identification can be set. Accordingly, the display RAMs 32 and 232 can be addressed by the microprocessor 40, the controls the movement of the image. When a command to move an image is received from the control panel 20, set the microprocessor 40 fixes the position of the image. Since the microprocessor 40 changes the color of each image in the knows the earlier television picture (frame) and therefore also the colors for the new television picture (frame), he deletes it accordingly the old image display and uses the new color information in the appropriate memory locations.

This use of multiple display RAM for controlling color generation for each on the raster of the television 30 to display point or line can be combined with the technique of the chromaticity control word (control word chroma). A chrominance control word with a predetermined number of data bits is assigned to each horizontal line of the television grid. The chromin control word contains instructions for generating a selected color at appropriate times during the display of that line. The chrominance control word is preferably stored in one of the display RAMs in memory locations which are read during the horizontal retrace time of the television 30 scanning beam.

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The chrominance control word can be used here to to generate a background color for each line and can be modified by the microprocessor 4-0 in such a way that that for each line of scan on the television 30 a background color is selected.

In Fig. 2 it is shown that a read control circuit 35 ', which works together with the television interface 36, successively reads the memory bits corresponding to each part of the grid to be displayed. The chrominance control word is read during the return time of the scanning beam. One of the display RAMs must have special memory locations to store a chrominance control word for each line of the scan. This increase in memory is determined by the number of data bits in the control word. If each control word contains two data bits, the control word memory 1050 must have additional storage locations. A read control circuit 35 supplies the chrominance control word, which contains n information bits, to an n-bit series parallel shift register 102, which makes the data bits of the chrominance control word available to a decoder in parallel form. The decoder determines which color is identified by the chrominance control word. If the chrominance control word is binary coded and contains η bits, any of 2 ⁿ different colors can be selected. Of course, other coding systems can also be used. This command (used here for the background color) is fed to the phase-shifting network 110 for generating the background color. This background color continues throughout the line of the display until the next chrominance control word determines the background color for the next line of the scan.

After reading the chrominance control word, the data signals from the display RAMs 32 and 232 are fed through the read control circuit 35 to the decoder 114 in parallel to determine the icon color for display at each horizontal bar across each line of the display certainly

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the color to be displayed and derives the appropriate signal from the phase shifting network 110. So generated the phase shifting network 110 determines the background color determined by the decoder 115 and generates colors of the on the Images to be displayed as raster as determined by the decoder. The out-of-phase carrier becomes the Nischer 112 is supplied, which also receives the horizontal and vertical synchronizing and blanking signals from the Television interface 136 receives. The output size of the Mixer is fed to the antenna connections of the television receiver 30.

The chrominance control word forms a suitable means of changing from color to black and white in each line to be scanned switch. This is particularly useful where only certain lines of the television grid are displayed in black and white while others should be shown in color. A selected chrominance control word, e.g. "o" in all data bits, gives the decoder 115 a special command that the corresponding line of the Advertisement must be shown in black and white. In these circumstances the decoder will provide a signal to a first one Input of an AND gate 142. Because the output variables of the display RAMs.32 and 232 are parallel to the inputs of the OR gate 140 are supplied, the color commands are disregarded and luminance information is generated. The output variable of the OR gate 140 is fed to the second input of the AND gate 142.

Therefore, if at any time the signal to set no color (color override signal) is given by the chrominance control word while luminance information is being read from one of the display RAMs, the AND gate 142 activates a video generator 56 which produces the necessary black - Generates white video signals. The output variables of the video generator is fed to a mixer 112, which converts the output variables of the phase-shifting network 110

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In favor of the output variables of the video generator 56 blocks. For example, if the video generator 56 generates a saturant, the surface element to be scanned becomes light (i.e. "white"). The mixer 112 adds the synchronizing signals from the television interface 36 is added.

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Λ? erse i te

Claims (3)

Claim Λ
1. / Anzoigösceuergerät for a! Color television receiver with inputs for a video signal, a display tube and a scanning device with which the display tube can be scanned with a predetermined scanning frequency, characterized by a memory (32,232) for the luminance and the color (chrominance), the one Having a plurality of pairs of discrete digital storage locations, each pair of storage locations corresponding to a predetermined image area of the display tube, a data processor (40) having a memory (42) for Storing digital data representing luminance and color to the luminance memory (32,232) or to transmit the color, a reading device (35 * 102) for successive parallel reading from the pairs of memory locations at a predetermined scanning speed, each Pair of memory locations is read essentially when the predetermined image area of the display 809820/1032 -2 - (θ · β) aaasea tclex OB-aesao TELEORAM MONAPAL TELECOPER tube is scanned, which corresponds to this memory location, and a color generator (110,112,114,115) which is linked to the reading device (35 »102) ^for converting the pair of memory locations into a color video signal, the color video signal being formed in this way is that it is feedable to the video signal input terminals of a television receiver. 2. Display control device according to claim 1, characterized in that the luminance of an image device only by those stored in the memory locations of the memory (32,232) for the luminance Data is represented and that the color of the image device is represented by the data in the pairs of memory locations is represented. 3. Display control device according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that one of the two memories (32,232) a plurality of discrete digital storage locations for storing a chrominance control word for each Line of the scan of the display tube contains that the reading device (35) each chrominance control word before Scanning the corresponding scan line reads that a decoder (114) for decoding each chrominance control word it is provided that the decoder (114) cooperates with the color generator (110, 112), whereby one derived from the chrominance control word and the memories (32,232) for the color, a video signal containing color information is generated. 809820/1032