JPH07219499A - Cursor control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a cursor control device displaying multiple cursors and a cursor using an animation. CONSTITUTION:This cursor control device is provided with a cursor shape memory device 20 storing the information of multiple cursors, a cursor attribute memory 21, a cursor display data generating circuit 22, and a multiplex circuit 23. Multiple cursors can be concurrently displayed, or a cursor using an animation can be displayed with these circuits. The cursor movement can be processed with minimum processing by software.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cursor control device for a display device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in the case of displaying a cursor on a display screen, in the display device as shown in FIG. 2, the data of the shape and position of the cursor is stored in the main memory 2 and the input device for moving the cursor receives an input. In this case, an interrupt signal is generated to the central processing unit 1 (hereinafter referred to as CUP), the interrupt routine is activated, and the cursor display process is started.
This processing is realized by software and is performed as shown in the flowchart of FIG. First, the display data hidden by the cursor, which has been saved in the main memory in advance, is written back to the display data corresponding to the display position via the data bus to the original display data (10
1) Next, update the data at the cursor position (10
2) The display data at the new display position of the cursor is read from the display memory via the data bus and saved in the main memory (103). Next, the cursor shape data stored in the main memory is written to the display memory corresponding to the display position via the data bus (104) and the routine returns from the interrupt routine. Since this operation is repeated every time there is an input for moving the cursor, the original computing capacity of the CPU is lowered.

Since such an operation occurs every time the cursor is moved, the display performance is greatly affected.
A method has been proposed in which this operation can be realized by simpler software processing. As one of them, in order to display one cursor, a function of storing the cursor shape data in a storage device other than the memory in which the display data is stored and overlapping the display screens (hereinafter referred to as a sprite function) is provided. There is known a method in which a cursor can be moved only by setting display position data by using a circuit provided therein, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-83791.

[0004]

When the cursor is displayed by the above-mentioned method, the load on the CPU 1 is reduced, but only one cursor can be displayed. Therefore, when the cursor is moved at high speed, the reaction speed of the liquid crystal is increased in the STN liquid crystal. Is slow and it becomes difficult to confirm the cursor, and there is a drawback that the cursor is lost. When the resolution becomes high, the cursor becomes relatively small and it becomes difficult to confirm the cursor. Further, there is a method of using an animation for the cursor as a method of keeping track of the cursor, but the processing in software imposes a heavy load on the CPU, and the original calculation ability cannot be fully exerted. Therefore, we considered the hardware that can freely set the shape and color of the cursor so as not to lose sight of the cursor, and can display multiple cursors on the trajectory.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a circuit of a display device capable of displaying a plurality of cursors.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a circuit of a display device which realizes a cursor using animation.

[0007]

According to the present invention, a display memory that stores at least display contents, a cursor shape storage device that stores the shapes of a plurality of cursors, a position of a plurality of cursors, a display state, and a display. A cursor attribute storage device for storing the priority, an access means for the CPU 1 to address the display memory, the cursor shape storage device, or the cursor attribute storage device to read / write data, and a screen display content and a cursor using the sprite function. And a circuit for superimposing a plurality of cursors on the basis of the data of the cursor shape storage device and the cursor attribute storage device for displaying the plurality of cursors by using the sprite function without writing the plurality of cursors in the display memory.

[0008]

By adding a dedicated control circuit capable of displaying a plurality of cursors, the plurality of cursors can be displayed as afterimages along the trajectory of the cursors, so that STN liquid crystal having a slow display speed can be used for the display. Even if you do, you can avoid losing the cursor position. Since the shape and color of the cursor can be freely set, it is possible to prevent the cursor from becoming relatively small by setting the shape of the cursor having an appropriate size even if the resolution is high, and to easily identify the cursor.

Further, since it is possible to display a plurality of cursors, a plurality of cursors can be sequentially displayed at the same position so that a cursor using animation can also be displayed by a simple operation.

Further, by using one cursor to be displayed, a cursor similar to the conventional one can be displayed.

[0011]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. The display memory 3 stores image data or text data to be displayed on the display. The cursor shape storage device 20 stores data of a plurality of cursor shapes and color information. Cursor attribute storage device 2
1 is position data indicating a position to be displayed corresponding to a plurality of cursors, display state data for deciding whether or not to display a cursor, priority data for deciding a display priority of a plurality of cursors, and other cursor display The attribute information required for is stored. Addresses generated by the display address generation circuit 6, shape data of a plurality of cursors stored in the cursor shape storage device 20 and the cursor attribute storage device 21, position data corresponding to a plurality of cursors, display corresponding to a plurality of cursors. The cursor display data creation circuit 22 creates cursor display data based on the state data and the priority data corresponding to the plurality of cursors. Further, the display address generated by the display address generation circuit 6 is supplied to the address switching circuit 7 via the display address bus 15, and given to the display memory 3 via the address switching circuit 7 by the signal of the switching control synchronization circuit 8. The display data is sent to the display read data bus 14, and the display data, the cursor display data and the cursor mask data created by the cursor display data creation circuit 22 are supplied to the data register 9, and the two data are synchronized. When the cursor display data is present, that is, when the cursor mask data is 1, the cursor display data is displayed; otherwise, the cursor mask data is 0. In this case, the display that displays the display data read from the display memory 3示用 supplied data to create and display driving circuit 10 a CRT or a liquid crystal display 1
It is displayed in 1.

Next, the cursor display data creating circuit 22 will be described in detail. FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of the cursor display data creation circuit 22 when the number of cursors is eight. The operation is as follows. First, the display address is input from the display address generation circuit 6 to the cursor shape data address conversion circuit, and the address of the cursor shape storage device 20 is output for each cursor based on this display address and the cursor position data. To do. At this time, if there is no corresponding address, the cursor data for one pixel is set to 0 in order not to access the cursor shape storage device 20 without outputting the address. The cursor data for one pixel read from the cursor shape storage device 20 and the priority data are input to the cursor data sorting circuit to sort the cursor data in order of priority. An example of this cursor data sorting circuit is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 5, cursor data is input to each selector circuit, and specific priority cursor data is assigned to each selector circuit 60 according to the priority data.
One is selected with and sorting is performed in order of priority. Input the sorted cursor data and display status data to the cursor overlay circuit, select the cursor data with the highest priority among the displayed cursors, and at the same time display the cursor mask data that indicates whether or not there is cursor data. create. An example of the cursor superposition circuit is shown in FIG. The circuit of FIG. 6 first detects whether or not there is cursor data in the first OR circuit, that is, checks whether or not all cursor data for one pixel is 0.
This output is further used to create cursor mask data by the OR circuit, the data of the cursor having the highest priority is extracted by each AND circuit in the second stage, and the final OR circuit unifies the outputs. Next, the selected cursor data is input to the cursor color data conversion circuit 53, the color to be actually displayed is selected from the color register 54 based on the value of the cursor data, cursor display data is created, and cursor mask data is created. And is output to the display data register 9 in synchronism with. The cursor display data and the cursor mask data can be created by the above operation.

FIG. 7 shows an image when a plurality of cursors are displayed as afterimages along the trajectory in the present invention. When the cursors overlap as shown in this figure, a cursor with a high priority is displayed. In addition, when displaying a plurality of cursors, the following processing is required. First, as an initial setting, a plurality of cursor shape data is written in the cursor shape storage device 20, and attributes for the plurality of cursors, that is, position data and priority data are set in the cursor attribute storage device. In order to actually move the cursor, the priority is updated and the position data of the cursor is updated when there is a cursor movement interrupt.
The cursor can be moved only by this operation.

Next, the configurations of the cursor display memory 20 and the cursor attribute storage device 21, which are the features of the present invention, will be described in detail.

In the case of updating the above-mentioned priority data, the order of the priority usually changes only every time there is an interruption of the cursor movement, so that it is constituted by a ring counter as shown in FIG. Only the highest priority cursor is determined using the cursor priority register and the remaining priority is
Setting the priority becomes easy by automatically determining the priority. When updating the position data, if the position data with the highest priority can be updated, the operation of the position data becomes easy. In the example of FIG. 8, when eight cursors are displayed, the priority in the state 1 is cursor 1, cursor 2, ... When moved, the priority becomes cursor 8, cursor 1, cursor 2, ..., Cursor 7. In this way, in the state where the lowest priority is the next, if the highest priority is set, the setting of the priority can be minimized. Further, if the signal is detected when the cursor position is rewritten and the priority is automatically rewritten, the cursor can be moved only by setting the position data. However, if there is no input for moving the cursor, a plurality of cursors are displayed on the trajectory, and the position of the cursor becomes unclear. Therefore, when the movement of the cursor is not input for a certain period of time, it is necessary to sequentially place the cursor on the position of the highest priority cursor. There are several methods for performing such processing. One method is to issue an interrupt that rewrites the cursor position data at regular intervals if there is no cursor movement interrupt. Alternatively, if there is an interrupt for cursor movement input, the interrupt processing is terminated by simply storing the position data in the memory for storing the cursor position that is not related to the cursor display, and this interrupt A cursor display interrupt different from the processing may be issued at regular time intervals regardless of the cursor movement input, and the cursor position data may be rewritten with reference to the cursor position storage device. Further, in order to realize such processing by hardware, as shown in FIG. 9, if the position data is not rewritten for a certain period of time using the shift register, the control clock, and the counter in the cursor position data register. Finally, if the position data is shifted and copied as shown in FIG. 10 (b), all the cursors are finally overlaid at the same position. In this case, the priority data is not necessary and may be fixed. Further, when the position data of the cursor is rewritten, the position data transits as shown in FIG. 10A, and it is necessary to reset the counter with the position data rewriting command.

When a plurality of cursors of the same shape are displayed on the locus, the shape data of the cursors may be the same,
It is only necessary to have multiple attribute data. The structure in this case is shown in FIG. By doing so, the amount of cursor shape data is reduced and the memory used can be reduced.

Next, a case of realizing a cursor using animation in the present invention will be described. In order to realize the animation, it is necessary to change the cursor shape data at regular time intervals. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 12, a plurality of cursor shape data, one cursor attribute data, a clock 34 for switching display, a counter 35, a display. The use of the switching time register 36 simplifies the processing by software. First, as described above, the cursor display data and the cursor attribute data are initially set, and the display switching time is set in the display switching time register 36.
The value to be set at this time is the following formula.

Setting value = (clock frequency) × (switching time) The value of the time register 36 is loaded into the counter 35, counting is started, and when the count value becomes 0, the display status data of the display status register 33 is displayed. Is updated and the value of the time register 36 is loaded into the counter 35 again to start counting. In this case, since only one cursor is displayed at a time, a ring counter is used in the cursor display state register 33 as shown in FIG. 12 to store the display state, and when the counter value becomes 0, it is automatically detected. The display state can be updated by a simpler operation. With the above-described configuration, the movement of the cursor can be realized simply by updating the cursor position data excluding the initial setting.

In order to realize the above-mentioned multiple cursors and animation cursors on the same hardware, the method shown in FIG.
The configuration shown in FIG. In FIG. 13, the all-cursor display flag 37 is a flag for setting whether or not all cursors are displayed, and the plural-cursor flag 38 automatically sets the priority determining data for determining the priority by updating the cursor position data. This is a flag indicating whether or not to change all cursors regardless of the display state data, and by making this flag inactive, the user can freely change the priority. The same plural cursor flag 39 is a flag for determining whether the same cursor shape data is used or not when plural cursors are active. The animation cursor flag 40 is a flag indicating whether or not the cursor to be displayed is automatically changed by using the counter, and the user can freely change the display state by inactivating this flag. . With such a register configuration, the operation required for moving the cursor can be minimized. In other words, you only need to set the position data, excluding the initial settings. Further, by making the plural cursor flag 38 and the animation cursor flag 40 inactive and activating the display state data of a specific cursor, it is possible to deal with a single cursor that has been conventionally used, and various cursor shapes can be used. If the data is registered in the cursor shape storage device, there is an advantage that the cursor shape can be changed immediately by activating the display state of another cursor.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, by displaying a plurality of cursors along a trajectory, it is possible to display a wide variety of cursors without losing sight of the cursors. In the case of displaying, there is an effect that a dedicated processing circuit is connected and cursor movement processing can be performed at high speed without burdening the CPU.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional display device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for displaying a conventional cursor.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a cursor display data creation circuit.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a cursor data sorting circuit.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a cursor overlay circuit.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example when a plurality of cursors are displayed on a locus.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing updating of the priority of a cursor using a ring counter.

FIG. 9 is a configuration diagram when a shift register is used as a position data register.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing transition of position data when a shift register is used as the position data register.

FIG. 11 is a configuration diagram of a cursor shape storage device and an attribute register when a plurality of same cursors are displayed.

FIG. 12 is a configuration diagram of a cursor shape storage device and an attribute register when displaying an animation cursor.

FIG. 13 is a configuration diagram of a cursor shape storage device and an attribute register when displaying a plurality of cursors and an animation cursor.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Central processing unit, 2 ... Main memory, 3 ... Display memory, 4 ... Interrupt control circuit, 5 ... Cursor movement input device, 6 ... Display address generating circuit, 7 ... Bus switching circuit, 8 ... Bus switching synchronizing circuit, 9 ... Display data register, 10 ... Display drive circuit, 11 ... Display, 12 ... CPU data bus, 13 ... CPU address bus, 14 ... Display reading data bus, 15 ... Display address bus, 20 ... Cursor shape memory Device, 21 ... Cursor attribute storage device, 22 ... Cursor display data creation circuit, 23 ... Multiplex circuit, 31 ... Cursor priority data register, 32 ... Cursor position data register, 33 ... Cursor display status data register, 34 ... Cursor display Switching control clock, 35 ... Cursor display switching down counter, 36 ... Cursor Display switching time register, 37 ... Previous cursor display flag, 38 ... Multiple cursor flag, 39 ... Same multiple cursor flag, 40 ... Animation cursor flag, 50 ... Cursor data address conversion circuit, 51 ... Cursor data sorting circuit, 52 ... Cursor overlay Alignment circuit, 53 ... Cursor color data conversion circuit, 54 ... Color register, 60 ... Selector circuit, 61 ... OR circuit, 62 ... AND circuit, 63 ... Shift register control clock, 64 ... Shift register control counter.

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A display memory for storing display contents, a cursor shape storage device for storing shapes of a plurality of cursors, position data corresponding to the plurality of cursors, data for determining display priority of the cursors, and a display. A cursor attribute storage device for storing cursor attributes including data indicating a state; an access means for the CPU to address the display memory or the cursor shape storage device or the cursor attribute storage device; and read / write data; and cursor shape storage A circuit that creates cursor display data based on the attribute data of multiple cursors in the cursor attribute storage device, and a multiplex circuit that superimposes the display data of the display memory and the display data of the cursor. And a cursor control device. 2. The cursor control device according to claim 1, further comprising means for automatically updating the priority of the cursor by using a signal of a cursor position data rewriting command. 3. The cursor control device according to claim 1, further comprising means for automatically updating the priority of the cursor by using a shift register in the storage device for the cursor position data. 4. A means for automatically updating the cursor display state data by using a cursor display switching control clock and a counter for the cursor display state data. The described cursor control device. 5. The means for automatically updating the display state of the cursor according to claim 4, further comprising means for changing the display time of the cursor for one frame using a register for setting the display time for one frame. And cursor control device. 6. An STN liquid crystal display display device, comprising the cursor control device according to claim 1, claim 2, claim 3, claim 4 or claim 5. 7. Claim 1, claim 2, claim 3, claim 4
A display control LSI comprising the cursor control device according to claim 5.