JPS6352391B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a virtual display control system, particularly a display device having a multi-scroll function, in which multiple display request sources can
The present invention relates to a virtual display control method that allows display control to be performed as if each display device were occupied.

In a display device having a multi-scroll function, so-called scrolling, in which an image is continuously moved from the bottom to the top or from the top to the bottom on the display screen, can be performed independently in multiple divided areas of the display screen. I'm starting to be able to do it.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a display device having a general multi-scroll function. In the figure, 1-1 and 2-1 are multi-scroll mechanisms, 2 is a screen composition unit, 3 is an image memory, 4 is a CRT display,
5 represents the display screen of the display.

The multi-scroll mechanisms 1-1 and 1-2 are
For example, the upper and lower parts of the image memory 3, which correspond one-to-one to the display screen 5 of the CRT display 4, can be processed independently. A part of the image memory 3 to be processed by the multi-scroll mechanism 1-1 and another part of the image memory 3 to be processed by the multi-scroll mechanism 1-2 are synthesized by the screen compositing unit 2. , are displayed on the display screen 5 under different scroll controls. Therefore, it is convenient when a plurality of data processing units share and use one display device.

However, according to the conventional method, when performing multi-scrolling, the image memory that can be used by each data processing unit is divided and becomes smaller, resulting in a problem that the displayable range is restricted. In particular, there has been a problem in that applications that use the entire screen to create and display tables or graphs cannot be used under multi-scroll mode.

The present invention aims to solve the above problems, and allows each data processing unit to process without being aware of whether or not multi-scroll is used, that is, without being aware of the size of the allocated display screen. The purpose is to provide a display device with Therefore, the present invention introduces the concept of a virtual display, allocates a virtual display memory of the necessary size to each data processing unit making a display request, and sets the virtual display memory to correspond to the image memory of the virtual display. This allows each data processing unit to process as if it were occupying a single display device, and the actual display screen is divided into frames called windows that can be moved freely within the range of the virtual display memory. The content of the extracted display area is displayed. Embodiments will be described below with reference to the drawings.

2 and 3 are schematic explanatory diagrams of control of the present invention, FIG. 4 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 5 shows an example of a window control mode by the window control section shown in FIG. 4.

In Figure 2, 4 is a CRT display, 5
-1 and 5-2 are divided display screens, 10-
1 and 10-2 are data processing units that are display request sources, 11-1 and 11-2 are virtual display memories, 12-1 and 12-2 are windows, 13-1 and 13-2 are cursors, and 14-
1 and 14-2 represent display areas.

Virtual display memory 11-1, 11-2
is each data processing unit 10-1, 1 that makes a display request.
This memory is allocated as a temporary image memory every 0-2. Virtual display memory 11-
The sizes of 1 and 11-2 may be arbitrary, and have a size corresponding to the entire display screen size of the CRT display 4 when the multi-scroll mechanism is not used, for example. Note that it is also possible to allocate a larger amount if necessary. Each data processing unit 10-1, 10-2 uses this virtual display.
It is sufficient to process the memories 11-1 and 11-2 while considering them as original image memories. The correspondence between the virtual display memories 11-1 and 11-2 and the divided display screens 5-1 and 5-2 is the window 12.
This is done by frames called -1 and 12-2. The windows 12-1 and 12-2 store a portion of the inside of the virtual display memory 11-1 and 11-2.
It may be considered that the ranges of the display areas 14-1 and 14-2 are defined for display on the display screens 5-1 and 5-2. That is, from the virtual display memories 11-1 and 11-2, the windows 12-1,
Display area 14- extracted by 12-2
The contents of 1 and 14-2 are displayed on display screens 5-1 and 5-2.
will actually be displayed.

Cursors 13-1 and 13-2, which display the coordinates and character position to be operated next on the display screen, can be freely moved within the range of virtual display memories 11-1 and 11-2. The windows 12-1, 12-2 have cursors 13-1, 13
Along with the movement of -2, the movement is controlled as described later. Therefore, each data processing unit 10-1, 10-2
On the other hand, users using CRT display 4 do not need to be aware of windows 12-1 and 12-2.
Desired portions within 1-1 and 11-2 can be displayed as desired.

For example, as shown in FIG. 3, when an instruction is given to move the cursor 13 outside the frame of the current window 12 in the virtual display memory 11, the cursor 13 on the display screen
Instead of changing the position of the window 12, the window 12 is controlled to be moved. That is, as the cursor 13 moves, the display area 14 is controlled to change, for example, to A, B, and C in FIG. 3.

FIG. 4 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.
In the drawings, numerals 1-1, 1-2, 2, 4, 10 to 14 correspond to FIG. 1, FIG. 2, and FIG. 3.
15 is a cursor control unit, 16 is a window control unit, 17 is a comparison circuit, 18 is a cursor conversion unit, 1
9 is the screen composition interface, 20 is the cursor
The registers 21 represent a window register, and 22 represent a virtual display memory size register.

Addresses within the virtual display memory 11 are expressed, for example, by coordinates (X, Y) in an X-Y coordinate system. The size of the virtual display memory 11 is represented by the maximum value A of X and the maximum value B of Y, and these values are held in the size register 22 in advance. The standard size is, for example, 2KB. The data processing unit 10 can freely read/read the contents of the virtual display memory 11 in this entire range.
Can be lighted.

The position of the cursor 13 is given by coordinates (CX, CY) within the virtual display memory 11. These coordinates (CX, CY) are stored in cursor register 20.
is stored and managed. The sizes C and D of the window 12 correspond to the sizes of the divided display screens on the CRT display 4, which are units of multi-scroll. The position of the window 12 is determined, for example, by the coordinates (WX, WY) of the upper left corner.
These coordinates (WX, WY) are stored and managed in the window register 21.

The cursor control unit 15 updates the contents of the cursor register 20 in response to an external cursor movement instruction. Instructions to move the cursor are
For example, this is performed by writing from the data processing unit 10 or by pressing a cursor movement key on a keyboard input device (not shown). The contents of cursor register 20 are taken into comparator circuit 17. Comparison circuit 17 compares the contents of cursor register 20 and size register 22,
Checks whether the coordinates (CX, CY) of the cursor 13 are within the virtual display memory 11, inputs the contents of the window register 21, and checks whether the cursor 13 is within the frame of the window 12. Check. If cursor 1
3 is out of the frame of the window 12, a signal to that effect is output to the window control section 16. At this time, the window control unit 16 controls the cursor 13 to fit within the window 12 by updating the contents (WX, WY) of the window register 21. Note that the coordinates (WX, WY) of the window 12 may vary within the ranges of O≦WX≦A-C and O≦WY≦B-D.

On the other hand, the contents of the cursor register 20 and window register 21 are stored in the cursor converter 18.
is input. The cursor conversion unit 18 performs a process of converting the coordinates (CX, CY) of the cursor 13 on the virtual display memory 11 into relative coordinates of the display area 14 defined by the window 12. Coordinates after conversion (NCX,
NCY) is given by NCX=CX−WX NCY=CY−WY.

These new coordinates (NCX, NCY) and the contents of the window register 21 (WX, WY) are input to the screen composition interface 19. The screen composition interface 19 reads out the contents of the display area 14 from the window 12 defined by (WX, WY), supplies it to the screen composition section 2, and also reads the cursor coordinates ( NCX, NCY). The screen synthesis section 2 synthesizes the screen information from another similarly configured multi-scroll mechanism 1-2, and displays the synthesized screen on the CRT display 4.

Next, with reference to FIG.
An example of a specific window control mode will be explained below.

As shown in FIG. 5A, when the cursor 13 moves within the currently displayed display area 14,
The window control unit 16 does not move the window 12. As shown in FIG. 5B, display area 14
If an attempt is made to move the cursor 13 further to the right at the right end of the window, the window 12 is moved to the right. Therefore, the position of the cursor 13 moves on the virtual display memory 11, but the display area 14 moves without moving on the display screen. As shown in FIG. 5C, when the cursor 13 is moved further up at the upper end of the display area 14,
The window 12 is controlled so that the entire display area 14 moves upward while the display position of the cursor on the screen remains unchanged. The leftward and downward movements of the cursor in FIGS. 5D and E are similar. As shown in FIG. The window 12 moves so as to move.
Note that the frame of the window 12 does not protrude outside the virtual display memory 11.

In the present invention, the virtual display memory 11 does not necessarily need to be internal to the CRT display device, but may be an external memory. The window control section 16 and the like may be realized by hardware such as a subtraction circuit or various gates, or can be easily realized by software. If it is made into firmware using microinstructions, it is appropriate in terms of processing speed and flexibility.

As explained above, according to the present invention, one display device can be shared by multiple data processing units, and each data processing unit does not need to be aware of the actual size of the display screen at all. There is no. Therefore, it becomes possible to arbitrarily increase or decrease the number of display devices installed in the system according to the convenience of the system. It is also suitable for systems that perform so-called single user/multi-job operations.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an example of a display device that generally has a multi-scroll mechanism, FIGS. 2 and 3 are diagrams explaining the control outline of the present invention, FIG. 4 is a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 4 shows an explanatory diagram of an example of a window control mode by the illustrated window control unit. In the figure, 2 is a screen composition unit, 4 is a CRT display, 11 is a virtual display memory, 12 is a window, 13 is a cursor, 14 is a display area,
15 represents a cursor control section, and 16 represents a window control section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A display device that has a multi-scroll mechanism and displays the contents of the image memory on the display, is equipped with a virtual display memory in which the display request contents are stored for each display request source, and which is operated next on the display screen. a cursor control unit that controls a cursor that displays coordinates or character positions within the range of the virtual display memory; and a cursor control unit that extracts a part of the contents of the virtual display memory as a display area and moves the cursor in the display area. and a window control unit that controls movement based on the virtual display memory, and the content of the display area extracted from the virtual display memory is displayed on each display screen of the divided display. Virtual display control method.