Text formatting for display

Abstract

Abstract A system in which a keyboard is used to enter codes into a bulk dynamic shift register which in turn selectively loads a smaller intermediate dynamic shift register which, upon command provides unformatted codes to be displayed to a formatting control system which formats the codes and loads them into a refresh or frame buffer. The frame buffer which is a random access memory outputs the formatted codes to an associated character generator and display. Complete formatting of the data to be displayed is accomplished during loading of the refresh buffer. No formatting is done between the refresh buffer and the character generator since the formatting performed prior to the loading of the characters in the refresh buffer is complete such that the data stored in the refresh buffer is identical to the data and format which would occur on printout if the unformatted characters from the intermediate dynamic shift register were input to a printer. During formatting an electronic tab stop is used, and the tab stop locations may be changed without the reentering of text characters. Further, during formatting, in the event that a format step cannot be completed prior to the output of another character from the intermediate shift register, the intermediate shift register is stopped to allow completion of the long format step. This situation usually occurs during a tab operation or a word underscore operation. If the long format operation can not be completed prior to the dying of the dynamic shift register, the shift register will be timed out and automatically rotated for another cycle to rejuvenate it.

Inventors

• 👤 W Boyd

Bibliographic Details