JPS6135485A - Character generator - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Technical Field The present invention relates to a character generation device that outputs character types such as characters or symbols, and more specifically, to output devices such as printers and display devices in a dot-matrix (IJ) format. This invention relates to a character generator for outputting visible characters or symbols.

Prior Art In a conventional character generator of this type, a character generation memory device that stores character information of character types stores character information for a certain number of dots for each character or symbol to be output. It was configured to be stored. Therefore, such a storage device required a storage capacity proportional to the number of character types prepared.

The structure of a character generation storage device in a conventional character generation device will be explained with reference to FIGS. 2 to 5. FIG. 2 shows the dot configuration of a character, for example the English letter rAJ. In the figure, one character (or symbol) is composed of an area X defined by the number C of dots in the vertical direction and the number R of dots in the horizontal direction, and in this example, C=24, R=18, 2.
It is 4x18 dots.

The baseline BL is in the area X defined by the CXR dot.
is provided, and the region X is divided into regions Y and z by the baseline BL. As shown in Figure 3 (1) and (2), in general, uppercase letters are baseline B.
The dot pattern is arranged so that it is located in area Y above L, and some of the lowercase letters overlap area Y and area 2.

Next, FIG. 4 shows a state in which the area X constituting one character (or symbol) is vertically divided into units of 8 dots, that is, 8 bits, and each divided area is numbered. In this example, 2
One character is made up of 4x18 dots, and 24x18
/8=54, so to display the English letter "A" it takes 1~
Character information indicating each of the 54 areas is required. The configuration of the character generation storage device in which such character information is stored is described in the fifth section.
As shown in the figure.

As shown in the figure, areas 1 to 1 divided in FIG.
The 54 character information is stored in corresponding storage areas 1 to 54 divided into 8-bit units to constitute character information of one character rAJ.

The character generation storage device has a storage area M in which 54 bytes of character information necessary to display this one character is stored, which is prepared in a predetermined order for the number of characters (hereinafter referred to as including symbols). , are arranged.

As mentioned above, uppercase letters, a, b, c
Most of the lowercase letters, such as, are arranged so that they span the area Y above the baseline BL in a predetermined dot configuration, and the remaining lowercase letters, such as gyy, are arranged so that they span the areas Y and z above and below the baseline BL. .

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 6, for example, the minimum information necessary to display the character rAJ is originally included in the area 42; Area 41 is also small. This is the difference between a so-called typeface and a bodyface, and the same applies to lowercase letters. Despite these differences, in the character generation memory of conventional character generators, a storage area of a certain number of dots (for example, 54 bytes) is allocated and stored for every character. ing. Therefore, data indicating a white dot in the storage area allocated for each character, in other words, characters can be directly
It can be seen that much of the storage area is occupied by data that does not contribute to display.

In this way, in the character generation memory device of the conventional device, a fixed length storage area is allocated to each character, making it easy to search for character information, but the number of dots that make up one character is 24 When the number of dots increases from 24 dots to 32 x 32 dots, or even 6.4 x 64 bits, the ratio of the part showing white dots to the part showing black dots increases in the dot configuration.

Therefore, there is a problem in that the storage area for character information indicating the white bit portion is relatively large and the storage capacity increases.

OBJECTS It is an object of the present invention to provide a character generation device that eliminates the drawbacks of the prior art and reduces the storage capacity of a character generation storage device in which character information is stored.

Configuration The configuration of the present invention will be described below based on embodiments. In the following explanation of this embodiment, FIGS. 7(a) and 8(a)
As shown in A), in an area t (indicated by 24 x 18 dots in this example) showing the basic dot configuration for displaying characters, within an area m (hatched area) above the baseline BL and p. The characters located within the region n (shaded area) including the upper and lower portions of the baseline are referred to as "lower case letters" in the narrow sense. In other words, if such an uppercase letter is a normal size, a lowercase letter below the baseline BL can be said to be a letter of a different size from the normal size.

Now, in this embodiment, area m for uppercase letters and area n for lowercase letters are divided vertically in units of 8 bits, in the same manner as in the conventional example shown in FIG. FIG. 7 (b) and FIG. 8 (b) show how each area is numbered. For example, in the dot configuration of an English font, the number of dots in the vertical direction above the baseline BL is called the "number of vertical dots," and the number of dots in the horizontal direction is called the "number of horizontal dots." The number 78 shall be called the "number of bytes." The number of dots to be added in the vertical direction from the baseline BL, as in the case of lowercase letters shown in FIG.
The amount of information necessary to display -m is called the "number of additional bytes", and the number of additional bytes is calculated as (number of vertical dots, tens of additional dots) x number of horizontal dots, 78 - number of bytes. In the embodiment shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the number of bytes required to display a capital letter is 1 vertical dot.
7. The number of horizontal dots is 16, so 17X16÷8=34
(bytes), and since the number of additional dots to display lowercase letters is 4 dots, in general, in addition to 34 bytes of character information, there is also (17+4)XI 6÷8-34=8
(Bytes) of character information to be added is required, and a total of 42 bytes of character information is required (Figure 7 ←)
, Figure 8 (b)).

However, in this embodiment, as will be described later, 42 bytes of character information is not necessarily required for lowercase letters, and for this reason, the storage area allocated for each character in the character generation storage device is used. Data (tags) for determining this is stored.

Next, FIG. 1 shows the overall structure of an embodiment of a character generating device according to the present invention. In the figure, an input device 50 inputs various input data to a processing device 52 for specifying characters to be output.

The processing device 52 connects to the character generation RO via a pass line 54.
It is connected to M 60 , ROM 62 and RAM 64 .

Here, the structure of the character generation ROM 60 is shown in FIG.

The character generation ROM 60 has an upper case part 102 and a lower case part 2.
02. The uppercase character section 102 consists of a set of storage areas 100 of a fixed length (35 bytes including 1 byte of tag) allocated to each character in which character information about each character to be output is stored. Lower case part 202
consists of a set of storage areas 200 in which additional data is stored corresponding to each lowercase letter that requires additional character information among the lowercase letters whose character information is stored in the uppercase part 102.

Storage area 1 allocated for each character in the uppercase part 102
A tag TAG is stored at the beginning of 00. Tag T
AG includes data for identifying whether it is a lowercase letter or not and for specifying the address of a storage area in the lowercase part 202 where additional data is stored. This tag is the 10th
As shown in the figure, it consists of 8 bits QO-Q7, of which 8 bits (Pi)Q? is a lowercase flag F that indicates whether or not it is a lowercase letter, and depending on whether this flag F is set to "1" or not, even with the same amount of information of 34 bytes, the difference between Fig. 7 (B) and Fig. 8 (
As shown in (b), the range of column scanning differs in the dot configuration.

Furthermore, Q5 is a bit for identifying whether there is an additional byte below the baseline BL as shown in FIG. 8(A). Qo to Q4 are "lowercase addresses", which are the area 2 of the lowercase part 202 where lowercase additional data (character information for additional bytes) is stored.
It shows the addresses of 32 fixed information areas in which data indicating each address of 00 is stored.

Qs is provided here even in the case of lowercase letters, when the spacing between adjacent characters differs depending on each character and additional data for the additional bytes (8 bytes) is not necessarily required. This is because there are cases where sing is performed.

Addresses 1 to 34 of the storage area 100 in which character information regarding, for example, the English letter rAJ in the uppercase part 102 is stored, have the dot configuration shown in FIG. 11 with C=17 and R=1.
34 bytes of character information obtained by vertically dividing the area defined by 6 into 8-bit units is stored. On the other hand, in the case of a lowercase letter such as rgJ in Figure 9, the area defined by 2] x 16 dots is divided vertically into 8-bit units as shown in Figure 8 (B). Of the 42 bytes of character information, 34 bytes of character information are stored.

Note that the remaining 8 bytes are stored in the additional data area 200 of the lowercase character section 202.

The ROM 62 also stores programs and fixed data for reading out the character information from the ROM 60 based on input data and performing various arithmetic operations to generate dot pattern data to be output.

The processing device 52 uses a program stored in the ROM 62 based on input data from the input device 50 to read out various data stored in the character generation ROM 60, and converts character data of characters to be output into a regular format. The data is processed into a buffer memory 66 and stored in the buffer memory 66.

In accordance with the input data input from the input device 50, the processing device 52 reads the area 100 of the uppercase portion 1G2 of the ROM 60.
Read character data from. For example, if the input data indicates an uppercase letter rAJ or rajt, the tag T
Since the AG Q 7 bit shows “0”, the 7th
White dot areas in one row each on the left and right of area m shown in Figure (a),
White dot area marks in the seven rows of white dot areas below the baseline BL are added to the read character data to assemble a dot pattern of one character t in the buffer memory 66.

Further, when the input data indicates, for example, a lower case letter rgJ, the area 100 of the upper case part 102 of the ROM 60
Since the tag TAG Q 7 bit read from the tag indicates rlJ, the additional data area 200 of the lower case part 202 is read by referring to the lower case address Qo", Q4. Then, the additional data area 200 of the lower case part 202 is read. One column of white dots on the left and right sides of is added to the character data read from the area 100 of the uppercase character part 102 and the additional data read from the additional data area 200 of the lowercase character part 202, and one character of that character is stored in the buffer memory 66. Assemble a dot pattern of minutes t. Such arithmetic processing is performed using the work area of the RAM 64. This character data is sequentially transferred from the buffer memory 66 to the line buffer memory 68.
When character data corresponding to, for example, one character digit is accumulated in the buffer memory 68, it is output to an output device 70, such as a printer or a display device, for visually outputting the characters.

Effects In the present invention, the character generation storage device in which character information is stored is allocated with a storage area for storing the minimum necessary character information for each type of character for each prepared character type, and The structure is such that data specifying the presence or absence of additional information and the storage area in which the additional information is stored is stored in a predetermined position of the storage area according to each character type. The storage capacity of the character generation storage device in which the characters are stored is reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the character generator according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the dot configuration of the English letter rAJ, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the arrangement of uppercase and lowercase letters in the dot configuration. Figure 4 is a diagram showing a state in which the dot-structured area constituting one character is divided into 8-bit units in a conventional device, and Figure 5 is a diagram showing the configuration of a character generation storage device in a conventional character generation device. , FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the difference between the area showing the minimum dot information necessary to form one character and the area necessary to display one character, and FIGS. 2 shows a state in which the dot configuration constituting one character and the area necessary for display in the dot configuration are divided into 8-bit units in the character generation device according to the above,
Fig. 7 shows the case of upper case letters, Fig. 8 shows the case of lower case letters, Fig. 9 shows an example of the configuration of the character generation ROM shown in Fig. 8, and Fig. 10 shows the case of the character generation ROM shown in Fig. 9. FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of the data structure of a tag. FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of the dot structure of the English letter "A" when the character generating device according to the present invention is applied. 50... Input device 52... Processing device 60... ROM for character generation 62... ROM 64... RAM 66... Buffer memory 68... Line buffer memory 70... Output device

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A character generation storage means in which character information indicating a character type is stored; an input means for inputting input data specifying a character type to be output; and a method based on input data from the input means. In a character generation device having a processing device that reads character information from a character generation storage means and assembles a character type to be output, the character generation storage means is allocated for each character in which character information about each character type is stored. a first storage unit consisting of a set of storage areas, and a predetermined position of each storage area includes a first storage unit that identifies whether or not the size of the character type is a second size larger than the first size. the first data and the characters thereof are of a second size;
If there is character information to be added, second data is stored for specifying a storage area in which the character information to be added is stored, and the character generation storage means further stores the character information to be added. includes a second storage section including a set of storage areas stored in correspondence with corresponding character types, and the processing device reads character information from the first storage section based on the input data, and the processing device reads the character information from the first storage section based on the input data, Referring to the first data of the character information, when the first data indicates the second size, reading the character information from the second storage unit based on the second data, and reading the character information from the second storage unit based on the second data; A character generation device characterized in that a character type to be output is assembled based on character information in first and second storage units.