JPH07104828A - State display method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To surely grasp a state change and to facilitate a specification change. CONSTITUTION:When performing any action at a terminal facility 1, in addition to the transmission of information caused by that action to a computer 2 for management, information expressing the state change is transmitted to the computer 2 for management as well. The computer 2 for management detects this information, converts 2b the converted result into any required display information and displays the information later. At such a time, since the converted result can be changed from a keyboard 2b of the computer 2 for management, the converted result can be easily changed into the specification change. Further, since it is not necessary to inquire the state of the terminal facility 1 from the computer 2 for management, the transmission of any excess information through a communication line is unnecessitated as well.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a status display method used in, for example, a production management system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, in a production management system, it is necessary to manage the state of terminal equipment existing on the system.
The status of each terminal equipment is displayed on the console of the management computer, such as "Online (in use)", "Offline (in maintenance)", "In trouble", "Down". Then, when trying to know the state of a certain terminal equipment, an inquiry about the state is first made to the terminal equipment, and a message corresponding to the result of the inquiry is displayed on the screen. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an apparatus according to the conventional method. The management computer returns the result of the action from the terminal to the terminal, and the management computer sends the result to the terminal at a timing different from the processing corresponding to the action. Makes an inquiry and the terminal responds to it. It should be noted that the terminals shown in FIG. 3 are the same terminal, and the processing is different, so they are described separately in the drawing. In this case, when trying to change the meaning of the terminal status, for example, when a message saying that the terminal side is under maintenance was displayed while offline, the message was displayed when the terminal side was under maintenance during a failure. At this time, the programs of both the management computer and the terminal are modified and dealt with.

[0003]

However, since such a conventional method is a method of making an inquiry to the terminal equipment and knowing the state at that time, the time interval for making an inquiry is the time when the state is updated. If it is longer than the interval, it becomes impossible to know the exact change of state. That is, there is a problem that the detailed state of time change is unknown. In addition, when changing or adding the meaning of the specified state, both the terminal side program and the management side program must be modified. However, in a system having hundreds of terminals, there was a problem that the change was not easy.

The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and an object of the present invention is to reliably grasp a state change and to facilitate a specification change.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve such a problem, the present invention provides a means for detecting information indicating a status sent from a terminal equipment to a management computer, and a detection result of the desired status. Is provided with a conversion means for converting the code to be displayed as, and the conversion means has a function of changing the conversion state by an instruction from the keyboard of the management computer.

[0006]

According to the action of the terminal equipment, the management computer performs a process corresponding to the action, and a message indicating the result of the process is displayed on the console of the management computer. For the message to be displayed, for example, the following table corresponding to the terminal states is prepared. Message: Data transmission error occurred to terminal Terminal status: Error occurred Message: Work started Terminal status: Online message: Terminal side maintenance is in progress Terminal status: Offline This table is managed by the management computer. By performing an operation of displaying a message on the computer for use, it becomes possible to change the state of the terminal to a state corresponding to the message. Also, by changing the terminal state corresponding to the message, the meaning of the state in the terminal can be easily changed as follows. As an example, it is assumed that the terminal state corresponding to the last message "Terminal side maintenance is in progress" is changed as follows. Before change message: Terminal side maintenance is in progress Terminal status: Offline After change message: Terminal side maintenance is in progress Terminal status: Failure occurs In this case, each means of the management computer performs the processing shown in the frame in Figure 2. It is like this. This allows the terminal to be used in a conventional manner.

[0007]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, the operation status of the terminal equipment 1 is managed by the management computer 2, and the terminal equipment 1
When the user takes some action, the information is sent to the management computer 1.

The management computer 2 is designed to perform predetermined management based on the data sent from the terminal equipment 1, and one of the management functions is to detect and display a state change of the terminal equipment 1. There is. The state change is a change state such as the above-mentioned "online (in use)", "offline (in maintenance)", "in trouble", "down state", and the like.

These pieces of information are included in the information sent from the terminal equipment 1 to the management computer 2, and the information is detected by the detection means of the management computer 2.
Then, the detection result is converted by the conversion means 2b,
The conversion result is displayed on the display means 2c.

The apparatus constructed in this way is used in the terminal equipment 1
When any action is performed by the, the information is sent to the management computer 2, and it is decrypted and displayed as described above. Therefore, normally, each time the terminal equipment 1 performs an action, the state represented by the information sent to the management computer 2 together with the action is displayed by the display means 2c.

Therefore, the management computer 2 can always grasp the latest state of the terminal equipment without periodically inquiring the terminal equipment 1 from the management computer 2 as in the conventional case. Therefore, since it is not necessary to perform communication for inquiring about the status, unnecessary communication is not performed and the communication line is available.

This does not appear as a remarkable effect when the number of terminal equipments is small, but when the number of terminal equipments becomes very large, the amount of communication for inquiry increases, and therefore, the information that is originally unnecessary. As a result, the communication line is occupied, which hinders the original data transmission from the terminal equipment 1 to the management computer 2.

However, in the case of the present invention, if the management computer 2 can know the state change of the terminal equipment 1 only by the action from the terminal equipment 1, it is not necessary to transmit extra communication information to the communication line. Therefore, the amount of necessary information transmitted can be increased accordingly.

Further, the management computer 2 is a conversion means 2
b, and the conversion contents of the conversion means 2b can be easily changed by a command input from an input device such as a keyboard 2d provided in the management computer 2. Therefore, even if the information sent from the terminal equipment 1 is the same, the meaning can be easily changed.

For example, it is assumed that the terminal equipment 1 has a plurality of keys, and when the terminal equipment 1 performs an action, for example, the key 1 and the key 2 among the plurality of keys are to be operated. The operation of that key was for business reasons, for example, when operating different actions, key 1 and key 3 were operated, but since the keys are close to each other and it is easy to make a mistake with each other, one action should be taken. The key 1
And change to key 10.

In this case, the detection program is conventionally detected and displayed according to the key operation, so it is necessary to change the detection program due to the different key operation. In the present invention, however, the keyboard 2d of the management computer 2 is converted. It only needs to change the conversion contents of the means.

[0017]

As described above, according to the present invention, the state change is detected on the management computer side based on the information sent from the terminal equipment. There is no need to make a call by using this, and the amount of communication can be reduced, so that the necessary information can be additionally sent. In addition, if the information sent from the terminal equipment is detected and displayed, and if it is necessary to change the content of the status display, the status change display can be easily changed by the input information from the management computer, making it easy to change. It also has the effect of being able to

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example in which an operation of the present invention is associated with a message that has been conventionally displayed and a state of a terminal.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a conventional method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 terminal equipment 2 management computer 2a detection means 2b conversion means 2c display means 2d keyboard

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A status display method for managing the status of terminal equipment by a management computer and displaying the status, and means for detecting information indicating the status sent from the terminal equipment to the management computer, and the detection thereof. A status display method comprising: a conversion means for converting a result into a code to be displayed as a desired status, the conversion means having a function of changing the conversion status by an instruction from a keyboard of the management computer.