EP0121070A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
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Plasma display management systems
Assignee: International Business Machines Corp
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Filing: 1984-02-20
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2004-02-20
Abstract
Abstract A display management system for one or more large plasma gas panel displays (11) is organised to splitthe display management operations between a host processor (20), a system microprocessor (21) and a picoprocessor (27). The picoprocessor (27) is the heart of a common internal bus (31) plasma display adapter (22). The program for the display is downloaded from the host processor (20) to the system microprocessor (21). The microprocessor generates op codes and initialises display parameters. The plasma display adapter provides control for the plasma panel interface, serialisation of character generator data, translates display position addresses for absolute cartesian coordinates to panel address, and computes the boundaries of dislay panel write and erase operations. Interaction between the system microprocessor and the plasma display adapter is minimised by a code list contained in the microprocessor memory and fetched by direct memory access. This code list contains high level commands which the picoprocessor in the adapter decodes and translates into simple commands for the surrounding interface logic.
Inventors
- 👤 Geoffrey Alan Emerson
- 👤 Joseph J. Ellis, Jr.
- 👤 Norman Apperley
- 👤 Roger Joseph Edwards
- 👤 Raymond Lewis James Foster
- 👤 David Christopher Haigh
- 👤 Michael Haslam
- 👤 Peter Verey
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-06 11:59
CPC Classifications
G; G09; G09G; G09G5/00; G09G5/22; G09G5/222; G09G5/14; G09G5/36; G09G5/363; G09G2310/00; G09G2310/02; G09G2310/0264; G09G2310/0286; G09G3/00; G09G3/20; G09G3/22; G09G3/28; G09G3/288; G09G3/291; G09G3/292; G09G3/2922; G09G3/293
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 12
Claim 1
Independent Claim
154 words
A display management system comprising a host processor (20) adapted in operation to execute application programs, including generating display related programmed symbols and peripheral commands; a system microprocessor (21), connected as a peripheral unit to the host processor and provided with associated storage to to receive from the host processor, and to store, display related commands and programmed symbols, the system microprocessor decoding and executing commands from the host processor including those relating to management of display data; and a display device (10), interfaced with the system microprocessor, for displaying data as determined by the host processor; characterised in that the display device is a plasma or gas panel display (11); and the system microprocessor interfaces with the display via a plasma display adapter (22) providing high level control of the native interface (29)of its associated display, together with serialisation of character data and computation of the boundaries of panel write and erase operations.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
154 words
A display management system comprising a host processor (20) adapted in operation to execute application programs, including generating display related programmed symbols and peripheral commands; a system microprocessor (21), connected as a peripheral unit to the host processor and provided with associated storage to to receive from the host processor, and to store, display related commands and programmed symbols, the system microprocessor decoding and executing commands from the host processor including those relating to management of display data; and a display device (10), interfaced with the system microprocessor, for displaying data as determined by the host processor; characterised in that the display device is a plasma or gas panel display (11); and the system microprocessor interfaces with the display via a plasma display adapter (22) providing high level control of the native interface (29)of its associated display, together with serialisation of character data and computation of the boundaries of panel write and erase operations.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
65 words
A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the adapter includes a picoprocessor(27), having direct memory access to the microprocessor storage, the microprocessor compiling, in response to display related symbols from the host processor, a picocode list defining the current sequence of operations to be performed by the picoprocessor and hence by the adapter as a whole, such picocode being immediately executable by the picoprocessor.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
127 words
A system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the picocode list includes picoprocessor executable op codes and initialising display parameters, the display adapter having a common internal bus(31), to which common internal bus are connected the picoprocessor, it being adapted to calculate the required boundaries, adapter memory means (26) for storing the picocode accessed from the microprocessor memory, together with the results of calculations performed by the picoprocessor in response thereto, control means (30) for fetching the op codes and display parameters from the microprocessor memory by direct memory access and storing the op codes and display parameters in the adapter memory , and character generator and serialiser (28) for serialising character data for transmission to the attached display according to the boundaries calculated by the picoprocessor.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
36 words
A system as claimed in claim 3, wherein the character generator includes registers (61, for example), accessible by the system microprocessor for storing afield attribute for insertion into the data stream formatted by the character generator.
Claim 6
Independent Claim
49 words
A system as claimed in claim, in which the adapter includes attribute detect means (62) for detecting and storing a field attribute in the display data stream, such field attribute being used for the next display row unless the first character of that row is, itself, a field attribute.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
31 words
6 . A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the adapter is arranged to translate display position addresses from absolute cartesian coordinates specified by system microprocessor to panel addresses,
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
77 words
A system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the display is of the type having a plurality of horizontal and vertical wires divided into odd and even groups which are physically addressable from opposite edges of the panel(see Fig. 7), each group having the same number of wires, the groups being aggregated into modules of a constant group size, absolute cartesian coordinates being translated into module, or module and group identities, for vertical and horizontal wires, respectively.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
73 words
A system as claimed in claim 7, wherein the groups of wires of each module are selectable by means of the currently loaded state of a shift register (see Fig. 7) of the kind which is loaded serially by pairs of bits, corresponding to an even and an odd group of wires, but read in parallel, the registers corresponding to one wire orientation being loaded before those corresponding to the other wire orientation.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
34 words
A system as claimed in claim 8, wherein for writing, as opposed to erasing, the shift registers of at least one orientation of wires are pre- and/or post-padded to obtain correct display element alignment.
Claim 11
Independent Claim
29 words
A system as claimed in any of claims 7, 8 or 9, wherein the number of groups between the start and the finish of an erase operation is calculated.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
138 words
A system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the adapter includes a character generator (28) and an associated character memory (100) storing character information of a predetermined pel width, the system processor being capable of specifying character widths greater or less than the stored predetermined pel width, the picoprocessor calculating the position of data to be displayed within the module specified for such display, the picoprocessor being responsive to the character width specified by the system microprocessor to cause the character generator to, either, truncate the character information from the character generator memory if the specified width is less than the specified pel width, or to pad the character information from the character generator memory with additional pels if the specified character width is greater than the predetermined pel width, for insertion into the wire selecting shift registers.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
No citation records indexed.
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