JPH06295317A - Electronic book - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an electronic book having high added values by utilizing books which can be read from any page and attaining the interest of reading which is never experienced in convensional methods. CONSTITUTION:At the time of receiving an instruction from a random display instructing means, a page selecting means allows a random number generating means to generate a random number and selects one of pages based upon the generated random number. A reading instructing means instructs a reading means to read out the display information of the selected page from an external storage medium and transfer the read display information to a display means. Since the contents of the page selected at random are displayed on the display screen, the interest of reading such as the random selection and play of quize games included in respective pages which has not been experienced by convensional methods can be attained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention stores the contents of characters, graphics, images, etc. of books, newspapers, magazines, etc. in an electronic, optical, or magnetic external recording medium and reads it out. Regarding the improvement of the electronic book to display.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as an electronic book, there is known an electronic book in which information (data) to be displayed is read from an external recording medium by an instruction of a page key, and the read display information is sequentially scrolled and displayed on a display screen of a display. Has been.

[0003]

If the contents stored in the external recording medium are quizzes, question collections, songbooks, sayings, role-playing games, etc., not only pages are turned one after another, , There is a desire to flip through pages at random.

However, in the conventional electronic book, even in the case of this kind of contents which can be read from anywhere, the user has to perform the operation of turning the pages by the key. Therefore, you can choose a quiz on various pages and play it, or choose and read one maxim per day, or select one waka from a collection of poems and learn the upper and lower phrases. There is a problem that it is not suitable for use in such as.

Therefore, the present invention aims to utilize a kind of book that can be read from any page, to realize the enjoyment of reading that has never existed, and to provide an electronic book with high added value. To do.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has the following constitution. That is, according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, reading means for reading display information recorded on an external recording medium, display means for displaying the display information read by the reading means, and random display information for the external recording medium. Random display instructing means for instructing display, random number generating means for generating a random number, and random display instructing means generate random numbers by the random number generating means, and one page based on the generated random numbers. And a page selecting means for selecting the display information of the selected page from the external recording medium by the reading means, and an instruction to transfer the read display information toward the display means. And a read instruction means for performing the reading.

[0007]

In the present invention, the page selection means generates a random number by the random number generation means when the random display instruction means gives an instruction, and selects one page based on the generated random number. Therefore, the pages thus selected are random. The read instruction means instructs the read means to read the display information of the selected page from the external recording medium, and also instructs the read display information to be transferred to the display means.

Therefore, since the contents of the randomly selected pages are displayed on the display screen of the display means, for example, the reading of an unprecedented reading, such as playing a quiz on various pages by choosing a quiz, is possible. You can have fun.

[0009]

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

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) 1 is configured in a one-chip form, and performs information processing and control of each unit described below according to a procedure stored in the ROM 2 in advance. The CPU 1 is connected to the bus 3, and to the bus 3, a ROM 2, an input unit 4, a RAM 5, a VRAM 7 directly connected to the display 6, and a reading device 9 for reading the external recording medium 8 are connected.

The input section 4 is provided with a next page key for instructing a change in display contents, a previous page key, a table of contents key for specifying a table of contents, a cursor key and the like. Further, the input unit 4 has a key for selecting one of the random display modes such as “one-time random jump” mode, “automatic random turning” mode, “limited range random” mode, and “selection random” mode. , And keys for selecting the “normal display” mode, respectively. The RAM 5 is composed of an IC memory or the like, and is capable of storing a table of contents read from the external recording medium 8 and a plurality of pages for the book.

The VRAM 7 is directly connected to the display 6 to refresh the display. The display 6 comprises a liquid crystal display or the like. The external recording medium 8 is a floppy disk, a CDROM, an IC card, or the like. The reading device 9 reads the recorded contents according to the external recording medium 8.

The external recording medium 8 has display information (display data) such as characters, images and graphics to be displayed.
In addition, information (data) that is not directly displayed but is mixed with display control information (display control data) used when displaying display information is stored in advance for each page. The display control information is for laying out a display screen by specifying the size of characters when displaying the display information, vertical writing / horizontal writing, character-to-character spacing, line spacing, prohibition processing, and the like. The display position of an image is designated.

Next, an example of the operation of the embodiment having such a configuration will be described in detail below.

First of all, the reader (user) uses the external recording medium 8
When is attached to the reading device 9 and the table of contents key is operated, the reading device 9 reads the contents of the table of contents stored in the external recording medium 8, and the contents are displayed on the display screen of the display unit 6. Then, when the cursor is moved to the position of the table of contents desired to be displayed by the cursor key and the table of contents key is operated again, the desired table of contents is selected. Then,
The content of the page corresponding to the selected table of contents is read from the external recording medium 8 by the reading device 9, and the content is displayed on the display screen of the display 6 (S1).

Next, the reader is asked to quiz the external recording medium 8.
When a question book, songbook, sayings, or role-playing game is stored, you can select from "random jump" mode, "auto random flipping" mode, "limited range random" mode, or "selection random" mode. When a novel or the like is stored in the external recording medium 8 by operating the key for selecting one, "normal display"
Operate the key to select the mode. When these key inputs are made (S2), the CPU 1 discriminates the key input, and as a result of the discrimination, processing according to the selected mode is performed as follows.

When the "one-time random jump" mode is selected, a random number is generated and one page is selected based on the generated random number (S3, S4), and the contents of the selected page are selected. Is read from the external recording medium 8 by the reading device 9 and transferred to the VRAM 7, and the display content is displayed on the display screen of the display 6 (S5). Here, when the display information is displayed on the display 6, the display screen is laid out by the display control information read from the external recording medium 8 at the same time as the display information. Similarly, in the following display, the page is randomly selected by the display control information when the display screen is laid out as follows. For example, in order to jump to one of N pages by using a random number in the range of 0 to 1, the area between 0 and 1 is divided into n areas in advance, and each area is divided into N areas. It corresponds to each page. Then, check the area to which the generated random number value belongs,
The page corresponding to this may be determined.

Next, when the "automatic random turning" mode is selected, a random number is generated and one page is selected based on the generated random number (S6, S7), and the contents of the selected page are selected. Is read from the external recording medium 8 by the reading device 9 and transferred to the VRAM 7, and the display content is displayed on the display screen of the display 6 (S8). Then, after the display is performed for a certain period of time (S9), the above random display is automatically performed every certain period of time until the interrupt key arranged in the input unit 4 is operated, and the interrupt key is pressed. Then (S10), the random display operation ends.

When the "limited range random" mode is selected, a random number is generated and one page within the range specified based on the generated random number is selected (S11, S12). Here, the designated range is designated by the initial value and the final value of the page that jumps to the data side in advance. Next, the display content of the selected page is read from the external recording medium 8 by the reading device 9 and transferred to the VRAM 7, and the display 6
Is displayed on the display screen (S13). Then, after the display is performed for a certain period of time (S14), the above random display is automatically performed every certain period of time until the interrupt key is operated, and when the interrupt key is pressed (S15), The display operation ends.

Further, when the "selection random" mode is selected, a random number is generated and one page is selected from candidate pages designated based on the generated random number (S16, S17). . Here, the designated candidate is a list of a plurality of candidate pages to be jumped to the data side in advance. Then, this is made to correspond to N areas of 0 to 1, and one candidate is determined using a random number of 0 to 1. The contents of the selected page are read from the external recording medium 8 by the reading device 9 and transferred to the VRAM 7, and the display contents are displayed on the display screen of the display 6 (S18). After the display is performed for a certain period of time (S19), the above random display is automatically performed every certain period of time until the interrupt key is operated, and when the interrupt key is pressed (S20), the display operation is performed. Ends.

On the other hand, when the "normal display" mode is selected, the following processing is performed (S21). For example, when the next page key arranged in the input unit 4 is operated, the content of one page of the next page following the currently displayed page is read from the external recording medium 8 and the display screen of the display 6 is displayed. Contents change. During this display, the contents of the next page are read from the external recording medium 8 and stored in the RAM 5 in advance. Therefore, when the next page key is operated again, R
The contents of AM5 are read and the display contents are changed.

As described above, in the embodiment of the present invention, the quiz,
Since the content of the randomly selected page can be displayed from the external recording medium 8 in which the question book, song book, sayings, role playing games, etc. are stored,
You can choose a quiz from various pages and play it, or choose and read one maxim per day, or choose one waka from a collection of poems and memorize the upper and lower phrases. You can use it and realize the enjoyment of reading like never before.

In the above embodiment, the "one-time random jump" mode, the "automatic random turning" mode,
The case where a dedicated key is arranged on the input unit 4 to select one of the “limited range random” mode, the “selected random” mode, and the “normal display” mode has been described. However, instead of this, it is also possible to display these modes on the display screen of the display 6 and use the cursor keys to select and confirm the desired mode.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the reader gives a random display instruction, the display contents stored in the external recording medium can be randomly selected and displayed on the display screen. This makes it possible to utilize the types of books that can be read even from the beginning, and to realize unprecedented enjoyment of reading, thus providing an electronic book with high added value.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation example of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 CPU 2 ROM 4 input section 6 display 8 external recording medium 9 reading device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A reading means for reading display information recorded on an external recording medium, a display means for displaying the display information read by the reading means, and a random display instruction for instructing random display of the display information on the external recording medium. Means, random number generating means for generating random numbers, and page selecting means for generating a random number by the random number generating means and selecting one page based on the generated random number when instructed by the random display instruction means Read instruction means for instructing the read means to read the display information of the selected page from the external recording medium, and for instructing to transfer the read display information to the display means. Prepared ebooks.