Character recognition

Claim 1

PATTERN RECOGNITION APPARATUS COMPRISING: SCANNING MEANS FOR SCANNING INPUT CHARACTER PATTERNS TO BE RECOGNIZED, QUANTIZING MEANS, ELECTRICALLY CONNECTED TO SAID SCANNING MEANS, FOR PRODUCING A BINARY "ONE" SIGNAL WHEN SAID SCANNING MEANS SENSES PORTIONS OF SAID PATTERN AND FOR GENERATING BINARY "ZERO" SIGNALS WHEN SAID SCANNING MEANS DOES NOT SENSE A PORTION OF SAID PATTERN AT SELECTED INTERVALS; A PLURALITY OF AND GATES; CONNECTING MEANS FOR CONNECTING THE OUTPUT VOLTAGES FROM SAID QUANTIZING MEANS TO SAID AND GATES; THE OUTPUTS FROM SAID CONNECTING MEANS FORMING A RASTER IN WHICH SAID BINARY "ONE" SIGNALS REPRESENT THE PORTIONS OF SAID RASTER CONTAINING SAID PATTERN; SOME OF SAID AND GATES HAVING DIFFERNT ONES OF THEIR INPUTS ELECTRICALLY CONNECTED TO ADJACENT OUTPUTS OF SAID CONNECTING MEANS; A PLURALITY OF WEIGHTING NETWORKS EACH REPRESENTING A DIFFERENT CHARACTER PATTERN BEING ELECTRICALLY CONNECTED TO THE OUTPUTS OF SAID LOGICAL AND GATES; AND MAXIMUM-DETECTION MEANS, ELECTRICALLY CONNECTED TO SAID WEIGHTING NETWORKS, FOR INDICATING WHICH OF SAID WEIGHTING NETWORKS HAS THE LARGEST OUTPUT SIGNAL, WHEREBY SAID CHARACTER PATTERN BEING SCANNED MAY BE IDENTIFIED.