GB2211973A

GB2211973A - Data processing apparatus

Info

Publication number: GB2211973A
Application number: GB8825407A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Toshiyuki Sakai
Original assignee: Brother Industries Ltd
Current assignee: Brother Industries Ltd
Priority date: 1987-10-30
Filing date: 1988-10-31
Publication date: 1989-07-12
Also published as: GB8825407D0; FR2622712A1; JPH01120194U

Abstract

A data processing apparatus has a scrolling function. With respect to a misspelled word entered through a keyboard, possible words are retrieved from a dictionary memory and are displayed in succession in a line with a space code between adjacent words. When scrolling is instructed, the possible words displayed are scrolled in the direction of the line and the scrolling is stopped when one of the possible words in a particular location has been replaced with an adjacent possible word. <IMAGE>

Description

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus capable of simultaneously displaying a plurality of character strings associated with input data and scroll ing the character strings on a display.

Known data processing apparatuses provided with a function to display and scroll a plurality of character strings associated with input data include, for example, an electronic typewriter with a spell checking function. When a word entered by an operator is misspelled, such an electronic typewriter can display possible words for the misspelled word. When there are a number of possible words and all of them cannot be displayed at a time, or when it is designed so that a possible word displayed on a predetermined position on a display is designated as a selected possible word, the possible words on the display are scrolled to shift the display position.

However, when scrolling is performed, a plurality of possible words on the display simultaneously shift on wordto-word basis. Therefore, it has been very difficult to recognize a change in positional relation between possible words or distinguish newly introduced possible words from those disappeared from the display owing to the added possible words, thus wearying an operator.

In view of the foregoing, the present invention has been made to reduce the drawbacks accompanying the known data processing apparatuses. It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a data processing apparatus in which when simultaneously displaying and scrolling a plurality of character strings associated with input data, an operator can easily recognize the scrolling status.

To achieve this and other objects, there is provided a data processing apparatus which comprises, an input means for entering data; a storage means for storing a plurality of character strings associated with data entered through said input means, each-character string being made up of a plurality of characters; a display means for displaying the plurality of character strings; a scroll means for performing a scrolling operation to scroll said plurality of character strings displayed in said display means, the scrolling operation being performed for a particular number of characters; an instruction means for instructing said scroll means to start the scrolling operation; and a stop means for stopping the scrolling operation when one of the plurality of character strings displayed on a predetermined position in said display means has been scrolled by a number of characters at least equal to a number of characters constituting said one of the plurality of character strings.

When the start of the scrolling operation is instructed by the instruction means, the scroll means scrolls the plurality of character strings displayed in the display means every particular number of characters. When one of the character strings displayed in a predetermined position is scrolled by a number of characters equal to a number of characters of that character string, the scrolling is automatically stopped by the stop means.

In the drawings which are given by way of example Fig. 1 is a block diagram for description of the inventive concept; Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing an electronic typewriter to which this invention is applied; Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing a control system of the electronic typewriter; Figs. 4A to 4D are flowcharts illustrating the operation of the electronic typewriter; Fig. 5 is a diagram illustrating contents of a possibility memory; and Figs. 6 and 7 are diagrams exemplifying displays of possible words.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of this invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this embodiment, an electronic typewriter is exemplified, to which this invention is applied. As shown in Fig. 2, a keyboard 3 is disposed at the front portion of a main body frame 2 of the electronic typewriter 1, and a printing mechanism 6 is mounted on the main body frame 2 at the back of the keyboard 3. At the rear portion of the keyboard 3 is provided a l-line-by-40-column liquid crystal display 75 which displays entered characters, symbols, etc.Like the keyboard of an ordinary electronic typewriter, the keyboard 3 has character keys 10 including alphabet keys, numeric keys and symbol keys, a RETURN key 11 and various function keys and switches, such as a MODE SELECTION switch 12 for switching between a typewriter mode and a memory mode. The keyboard 3 further includes a POSSIBILITY key 13 for causing a display 75 to display possible words for a misspelled word, a NEXT-POSSIBILITY key 14 and a PREVIOUS-POSSIBILITY key 15, the latter two are provided for altering the positional order of a plurality of possible words displayed, and a REPLACE key 16 for replacing a misspelled word with a selected possible word.

Referring to the block diagram shown in Fig. 3, an arrangement of a control system of the electronic typewriter will be described.

The electronic typewriter 1 includes the keyboard 3, a display section 4, a control section 5 and the printing mechanism 6. The keyboard 3, display section 4 and printing mechanism 6 are coupled through a data bus to a main CPU (Central Processing Unit) 30 of the control section 5. In addition to the main CPU 30, the control section 5 includes a ROM (Read-Only Memory) 40 and a RAM (Random Access Memory) 50 both coupled through the data bus to the main CPU 30.In a program memory 41 of the ROM 40 stored are, for example, a control program for controlling the printing mechanism 6 and display section 4 in accordance with code data entered through the individual character keys and various function keys on the keyboard 3, a spell check control program for a spell checking processing, a character format control program for executing character formatting such as underlining and bolding, and a control program for a setinformation display control to be described later.

About 70,000-word data are stored in a dictionary memory 42 of the ROM 40, in which the words are arranged in alphabetical order like in an ordinary dictionary. Based on those words, spell checking is executed and possible words for a misspelled word are outputted.

The RAM 50 includes a text memory 51 for storing data of a text entered through the keyboard 3; a cursor pointer 52 for storing cursor position data; a posibility memory 53 for storing possible words retrieved from the dictionary memory 42 in association with an entered misspelled word; a first possibility memory pointer 54, a second possibility memory pointer 55 and a third possibility memory pointer 56, which memory pointers 54, 55 and 56 are used when displaying in the display 75 possible words stored in the possibility memory 53; a possibility end pointer 57 in which is set the last address of the possible words retrieved from the dictionary memory 42 regarding one misspelled word and stored in the possibility memory 53; a display possibility memory 58 for storing possible words in accordance with the display status of possible words in the display 75; and a display possibility pointer 59 for storing an address to which this display possibility memory 58 accesses.

When the typewriter mode is selected by the MODE SELECTION switch 12, based on control programs, the main CPU 30 permits the printing mechanism 6 to print out characters and symbols corresponding to data entered through the individual character keys 10, and permits the text memory 51 to sequentially store the print data in association with the printing positions. When the memory mode is selected by the MODE SELECTION switch 12, data entered through the individual character keys 10 is not printed but is displayed In the display 75 and is sequentially stored in the text memory 51.

The display section 4 includes an interface 70, a display CPU 71, a character generator 72, a display controller 73 and the display 75, which are mutually coupled as illustrated in Fig. 3 The character generator 72 has about 400 types of dot matrix display data stored therein in association with code data in order to display characters and symbols in the display 75. Based on command data and character data coming from the main CPU 30 through the interface 70, the display CPU 71 reads out display data corresponding to these data from the character generator 72 and outputs the display data to the display controller 73. The display controller 73 writes the display data in a display RAM 74 and outputs a display signal corresponding to the display data to the display 75 at the same time.The display CPU 71 also performs a cursor movement control for specifying the address of a cursor which has moved to the display controller 73 in accordance with cursor movement data transferred from the main CPU 30 through the interface 70.

Based on the flowchart shown in Fig. 4, a description will now be made with respect to the display control in the memory mode which is executed by the control unit of the electronic typewriter. In this flowchart, pointer names in the parentheses "( )" indicate data written at the addresses specified by these pointers. When the power is turned on and the memory mode is selected by the MODE SELECTION switch 12, the control by the flowchart starts. First, the flow advances to step 1 where initial setting such as setting of the memory mode and clearings of the respective memory pointers, is executed. The flow then advances to step 2 where it is checked whether or not key input is made.

Upon depression of a key, it is checked in step 3 whether or not the depressed is the POSSIBILITY key 13, and if it is the case, the flow advances to step 5. If the depressed is other than the POSSIBILITY key 13, the flow advances to step 4 to execute a process associated with the depressed key, such as, for example, writing character data in the text memory for a character key 10, and then returns to step 2.

In step 5, it is checked whether or not a word exists in the cursor position, and if not, the flow returns to step 2. If a word exists, then the flow advances to step 6 where it is checked whether or not the word is contained in the dictionary memory 42. If the word is contained in the dictionary memory 42, nothing is done and the flow returns to step 2, since the spelling of that word is considered to be correct. If the word is not contained in the dictionary memory 42, the word is considered to be misspelled and the flow advances to step 7 where possible words associated with this word are retrieved from the dictionary memory 42 and all of them are stored in the possibility memory 53. In step 8, the last address of the last possible word is set in the possibility end pointer 57.Assuming that three possible words "hire" , "heir" and "her" for a misspelled word "hier" are retrieved from the dictionary memory 42, then, these three possible words are stored in the possibility memory 53 while being spaced apart by a space code between the adjacent possible words as shown in Fig. 5.

The address for the space code next to "her" is set in the possibility end pointer 57. The symbol " Lj " in Fig. 5 indicates such a space code. In step 9, the leading address of the possibility memory 53 is set in the first and second memory pointers 54 and 55. In step 10, a display subroutine is called and the contents of the possibility memory 53 following the address indicated by the second possibility memory pointer 55 is displayed in the display 75, as shown in Fig. 6(a).

Referring to FIG. 4D, a description will be made with respect to the display subroutine. In step 42, the value of the second possibility memory pointer 55 is set to the third possibility memory pointer 56. In step 43, the leading address of the display possibility memory 58 is set to the display possibility pointer 59. In step 44, the contents at the address indicated by the third possibility memory pointer 56 is set to the address indicated by the display possibility pointer 59. In steps 45 and 46, the values of the display possibility pointer 59 and the third possibility memory pointer 56 are respectively incremented by one. In step 47, the value of the third possibility memory pointer 56 is compared with that of the possibility end pointer 57, and if the former value is smaller than the latter, the flow advances to step 49.On the other hand, if the former value is greater than or equal to the latter one, the leading address of the possibility memory 53 is set to the third possibility memory pointer 56 in step 48, whereupon the flow advances to step 49. In step 49, the value of the third possibility memory pointer 56 is compared with that of the second possibility memory pointer 55. If they are not equal to each other, the flow returns to step 44 and if they are equal to each other, the flow advances to step 50. The steps 42 to 50 are executed to sequentially set the contents of the possibility memory 53, starting at the address indicated by the second possibility memory pointer 55, in the display data memory. In step 50, the set contents of the display data memory is displayed in the display 75, then the flow returns to the main routine.

In step 11, a key input is waited for, and upon detection of any key input, the flow advances to step 12 where it is checked whether or not the depressed is the NEXT POSSIBILITY key 14. If it is not the case, the flow advances to step 25. In step 13, the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is set to the second possibility memory pointer 55, and in step 14 the value of the pointer 54 is incremented by one. In step 15, the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is compared with that of the possibility end pointer 57, and if the former is greater than the latter, the flow advances to step 18. In step 16, it is checked whether or not the contents at the address indicated by the first possibility memory pointer 54 is a space, and if not, the flow returns to step 14.If it is the space, the flow advances to step 17 where the content of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is incremented by one and then advances to step 19. Steps 14 to 19 are executed to set the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 to the leading address of the next possible word.

If, in step 18, the first possibility memory pointer 54 indicates the leading address of the last possible word, the leading address of the possible word present at the head of the possibility memory 53 is set as the next possible word to the first possibility memory pointer 54.

In step 19, the value of the second possibility memory pointer 55 is incremented by one, and in step 20 this incremented value is compared with the value of the possibility end pointer 57. If the former value is smaller than or equal to the latter, the flow directly advances to step 22, and if it is greater than the latter value, the flow advances to step 21. In step 21, the leading address of the possibility memory 53 is set in the second possibility memory pointer 55. In step 22, the display subroutine is called and the contents of the possibility memory 53 following the address indicated by the second possibility memory pointer 55 is displayed in the display 75, as shown in Fig 6(b). In step 23, the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is compared with that of the second possibility memory pointer 55, and if they are equal to each other, the flow advances to step 11.If these values are not equal to each other, the flow advances to step 24 for a 0.3-second wait and then returns to step 19.

Steps 17 through 11 are executed to sequentially change the displays from that shown in Fig. 6(a) to that in Fig. 6(f) every 0.3 second.

In step 25, it is checked whether or not the depressed is the PREVIOUS POSSIBILITY key 15. If not, the flow advances to step 40. In step 26, the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is set to the second possibility memory pointer 55, and in step 27 the value of the pointer 54 is decremented by one. In step 28, the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is compared with the leading address of the possibility memory 53, and if the former is smaller than or equal to the latter, the flow advances to step 29. In step 29, the value of the possibility end pointer 57 is set to the first possibility memory pointer 54. The value of the pointer 54 is decremented by one in step 30 and this decremented value is compared, in step 31, with the leading address of the possibility memory 53 in step 31.If these values are equal to each other, the flow advances to step 34, and if not, the flow advances to step 32. In step 32 it is checked whether or not the content at the address indicated by the first possibility memory pointer 54 is a space. If not, the flow returns to step 30 and if it is the space, the flow advances to step 33 where the content of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is incremented by one. Steps 26 to 33 are executed to set the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 to the leading address of the previous possible word. If, in step 26, the first possibility memory pointer 54 indicates the leading address of the first possible word, the leading address of the last possible word in the possibility memory 53 is set, as the previous possible word to the first possibility memory pointer 54.

In step 34, the value of the second possibility memory pointer 55 is decremented by one, and in step 35 this decremented value is compared with the leading address of the possibility memory 53. If the former value is smaller than the latter value, the flow advances to step 36 and if it is greater than or equal to the latter, the flow directly advances to step 37. In step 36 the value of the possibility end pointer 57 is set to the second possibility memory pointer 55, and the flow advances to step 37.

In step 37, the display subroutine is called and the contents of the possibility memory 53 following the address indicated by the second possibility memory pointer 55 are displayed in the display 75, as shown in Fig. 7(b). In step 38, the value of the first possibility memory pointer 54 is compared with that of the second possibility memory pointer 55, and if they are equal to each other, the flow advance to step 11. If these values are not equal to each other, the flow advances to step 39 for a 0.3-second wait and then advances to step 19. Steps 34 through 11 are executed to sequentially change the displays from that shown in Fig.

7(a) to that in Fig. 7(e) every 0.3 second.

In step 40, it is checked whether or not the depressed is the REPLACE key 16. If not, the flow returns to step 11.

If it is the REPLACE key, the misspelled word in the text memory is replaced with the possible word displayed in the leftmost position of the display in step 41. Upon completion of the replacement, the flow returns to step 2 for execution of ordinary input processings.

As described above, according to this embodiment, upon depression of the NEXT POSSIBILITY key 14 or PREVIOUS POSSIBILITY key 15, the possible words in the disolay are scrolled forwardly or backwardly on character-to-character basis every predetermined interval. Upon depression of the NEXT POSSIBILITY key 14 or PREVIOUS POSSIBILITY key 15, the scrolling is automatically stopped when that possible word which is stored in the possibility memory 53 at the address one previous or one succeeding to the address of the possible word that has been displayed at the foremost position on the display 75 comes to the foremost position in the display 75.In this embodiment, the possible word stored at the address one previous to the possible word which is stored at the leading address in the possibility memory 53, i.e., hire in Fig. 5, is regarded as the possible word stored at the end in the memory 53, i.e., "her" in Fig. 5, and the possible word stored at the address succeeding by one to the address of this last possible word is the first possible word, "hire" in Fig. 5, stored at the leading address.

According to the above-described scrolling, an operator can easily grasp a change in positional relation between possible words in the display 75 and can recognize the possible words newly introduced into or disappeared from the display. This improves the efficiency in a text preparation task.

Although this embodiment has been described with reference to input data being a word entered through input means by the operator, this invention is in no way limited to this particular case. For instance, the input data may be command data to request the display of data of various character strings which are stored in advance in various types of data processing apparatuses.

Claims

CT,#IMS

1. A data processing apparatus comprising: an input means for entering data; a storage means for storing a plurality of character strings associated with data entered through said input means, each character string being made up of a plurality of characters; a display means for displaying the plurality of character strings; a scroll means for performing a scrolling operation to scroll said plurality of character strings displayed in said display means, the scrolling operation being performed for a particular number of characters; an instruction means for instructing said scroll means to start the scrolling operation; and a stop means for stopping the scrolling operation when one of the plurality of character strings displayed on a predetermined position in said display means has been scrolled by a number of characters at least equal to a number of characters constituting said one of the plurality of character strings.

2. A data processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a replacement means for replacing the data entered by said input means with a character selected from the plurality of character strings.

3. A data processing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the plurality of character strings are displayed in succession in said display means in a particular direction.

4. A data processing apparatus according to claim 1, 2 or 3, further comprising a first direction instructing means for instructing to scroll the plurality of character strings in a first direction, and a second direction instructing means for instructing to scroll the plurality of character strings in a second direction opposite to the first direction.

5. A data processing apparatus according to claim 1, 2, 3 or 4, wherein the data entered by said input means is a misspelled word and the plurality of character strings stored in said storage means are possible words with respect to the misspelled word.

6. A data processing apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and illustrated in the accornpanying drawings.

7. A typewriter including apparatus according to any preceding claim.

8. A word processor or personal computer including apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 6.