Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G09—EDUCATION; CRYPTOGRAPHY; DISPLAY; ADVERTISING; SEALS
  • G09G—ARRANGEMENTS OR CIRCUITS FOR CONTROL OF INDICATING DEVICES USING STATIC MEANS TO PRESENT VARIABLE INFORMATION
  • G09G5/00—Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators
  • G09G5/22—Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators characterised by the display of characters or indicia using display control signals derived from coded signals representing the characters or indicia, e.g. with a character-code memory
  • G09G5/24—Generation of individual character patterns
  • G09G5/246—Generation of individual character patterns of ideographic or arabic-like characters
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
  • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
  • B41J3/00—Typewriters or selective printing or marking mechanisms characterised by the purpose for which they are constructed
  • B41J3/01—Typewriters or selective printing or marking mechanisms characterised by the purpose for which they are constructed for special character, e.g. for Chinese characters or barcodes

Definitions

• This invention relates to improved character manipulation and, in particular to improved means of specifying and forming characters.
• This invention described the use of a limited number of elements to represent each part of a Chinese character, the elements each being given an alpha ⁇ numeric code and a character being defined by the codes of the elements forming the character in the order in which they would be written.
• That invention then describes the method of identifying the particular characters from a dictionary, displaying these and, if required, providing a hard copy output.
• That specification also describes certain methods whereby ambiguities can be resolved.
• the object of the present invention is to provide various improvements in the concepts set out in the earlier applications.
• I provide a method of specifying characters by the use of not more than four keys on a keyboard, each of which keys represents an element, each element representing at least one component of a character and which, in turn, is represented by an alpha-numeric code, the elements, in combination, being capable of representing the whole of any character of the character set, when entered in the order in which the components of the character would conventionally be written.
• the actual keyboard could, if required, have only the four keys necessary for the application of the method but, practically, the keyboard may have a number of other keys which could be used for frequent element combinations which are ergonomically located on the keyboard.
• a still further aspect of the invention is the division of the ambiguities into two sets: a set of the most common ambiguities and a set of less common ambiguities.
• the most common set would be memorised by the operator.
• the first ambiguity of each ambiguity group (consisting most commonly of two or three characters) would be specified by its usual input and need not be memorised.
• the other member or members of the group would be specified by the operator by an additional keystroke or by a specified sequence of keystrokes.
• a still further aspect of the invention is in the use of the keyboard to abbreviate the most common characters by representing them by single keystrokes which, on their own, do not represent characters, or by combinations of two keystrokes which cause the input for these characters to be abbreviated and are not otherwise utilized. These can have high mnemonic values. Combinations of two keystrokes can also be used to represent long initial radicals of characters and thus facilitate the entering and differentiation of such characters.
• clockwise elements not only include the left diagonal stroke, but also any strokes which generally curve in a clockwise direction.
• anti-clockwise elements will include not only the right diagonal stroke, but also any elements which move in a generally anti ⁇ clockwise direction.
• the short stroke or dot must be incorporated in one of the elements concerned and I would normally prefer to count this as a counter-clockwise element but it is stressed that this is purely for convenience.
• any very commonly occurring element or radical could be incorporated into one of the elements.
• the foursomes of sets 3 and 4 are simply exemplary of particular further combinations of elements which could be used to make up a foursome which basically satisfies the criteria set hereinabove.
• Another advantage which may be gained by selecting particular foursomes or threesomes where the individual elements of the sets can, themselves, be non- unique can be that particular radical keys which may otherwise be provided on the keyboard but which are incorporated as an element of the set can be omitted and, thus, the key is freed for a further purpose, such as a more complex radical.
• the new method could be completely transparent to an operator-used to operating under the five element system, but the benefits, as far as memory usage would still be achieved.
• an "empty" key which provides an indication that there is a continuous sequence of unspecified elements omitted so that, when searching its memory, the computer looks for a string equivalent to the elements initially entered and then checks, in the characters having this initial string, if the elements entered after the "empty" key are present.
• a complete radical not be omitted and it may be practicable to permit the use of the empty key in more than one position in a particular character which would, of course, necessitate effectively a double string search after the initial entry and an ascertainment that the members of each string do not overlap.
• This feature is basically useful where more complex characters are being examined and, should it leave ambiguities, then these will be displayed in the manner as described in the earlier specification.
• the "empty" key can be used in three different areas.
• the second is as a truncating device to simply abbreviate the input by finishing inputting after a particular number of elements but, nevertheless, indicating that the character itself does not have only that number of elements.
• a third area where the use of an "empty" key can be of value is where there is an unclear, if copying from handwriting, or uncertainly remembered, portion of a character.
• the recognised or known portions of the character can be entered and the unclear or uncertainly remembered portion can be omitted by the "empty" key and, either, the whole character will be displayed or the normal method of resolving ambiguities can be effected if more than one character includes the elements entered and other elements in the places where the "empty" key has been used.
• I provide alternative means to overcome the ambiguities involved in the use of relatively short characters.
• the character _ would be entered as 20 U and the character * ⁇ entered as 203 ⁇ . as the components O and ___. are sufficiently common to be marked on the keyboard.
• the arrangement could be that some or all of the keys have the literal meaning marked on the key, when the key is operated, but, if there is another character component which uses the same digit combination, the use of a shifted key could indicate the alternative form or forms which are less common than the one shown on the key concerned, or could indicate the size or relative position of a component.
• the two characters o and jfc. would both be entered, if the element keys were used, as 3232 but, using this aspect of the invention, the first form would be obtained by using simply the key bearing the marking and the second by pressing the same key as a shifted key.
• the use of the shifted key would still show the alternatives, either with the most common omitted, or preferably, the less likely in the circumstances, as normally the most likely would have been obtained by using the unshif ted key.
• a still further alternative method of resolving ambiguities is based on the knowledge that in the first thousand most commonly used characters, I have found that there are, in fact, only fifty-five ambiguities and it will be appreciated, from studies of the frequencies of characters, that the first thousand most common characters would include 95% of the characters of an average text. It is possible to memorize these most common ambiguities. Ambiguities of lesser frequency than the most common set, of say fifty-five ambiguities, would be signalled and resolved by the operator.
• Memorization of the most common ambiguities can be simplified by various mnemonic devices including differentiation by describing the different sound values of ambiguous characters.
• O PI adopting the particular character initially found and, by using such an arrangement, I find that I can limit the ambiguity rate in an average text to approximately 0.3% or one in three hundred characters.
• I may provide a means whereby a specified input, which may or may not be relative to the actual character required, consisting of one or only a small number of key strokes can be used, by definition, to display certain characters. This could be done by associating various characters with any radical key, or other key on the keyboard which would not normally be used alone, or any two such keys to indicate that a specific learned character is required. It may be possible to select the key or keys used to be a mnemonic of the required character.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Input From Keyboards Or The Like (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (3)

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• 1984
  • 1984-10-05 WO PCT/AU1984/000194 patent/WO1985001475A1/en active IP Right Grant
  • 1984-10-05 KR KR1019850700138A patent/KR850700022A/ko not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1984-10-05 JP JP84503673A patent/JPS61501382A/ja active Pending
  • 1984-10-05 EP EP84903620A patent/EP0157838B1/de not_active Expired
  • 1984-10-05 DE DE8484903620T patent/DE3478099D1/de not_active Expired

Patent Citations (1)

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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