Bridge bidding indicator

Claim 1

A bridge bidding indicator comprising: a frame formed with a plurality of recesses for holding respective packs of cards; a display unit disposed on said frame, said display unit including a multiplicity of electrically actuable indicia representative of a suit or no-trump, the number of tricks, and pass, double and re-double, said display unit including a plurality of light-emitting diodes for displaying said indicia, said indicia being representative of a suit or no-trump, each of said indicia including a plurality of separately actuable elements, said indicia being disposed in a plurality of rows and columns intersecting with said rows, each of said rows being indicative of a round of a multiplicity of biddable rounds, and each of said columns being indicative of a bid submittable successively by one and the same player; a signalling unit disposed on said frame, said signalling unit including a plurality of manipulable means indicating said plurality of indicia for selective actuation thereof on said display unit by a player, the first of said rows of said display unit including a plurality of electrically actuable designations representative of respective players, and wherein said designations are actuable and successively shiftable by said manipulable means in, and along said first row respectively; and circuit means disposed on said frame for causing the display of said indicia on said display unit in a plurality of successive columns and rows, respectively, in dependence of successive actuation of said manipulable means by respective players, said circuit means including code generator means for digitally encoding said indicia, counting means for counting the number of said indicia encoded by said code generator means, and wherein said manipulable means include erase means for cancelling the display shown by the last actuation of one of said manipulable means, wherein said counting means include a forward/backward counter actuable for a forward count of said indicia and for backward counting by actuation of said erase means, and wherein a subsequent actuation of said manipulable means to supersede the erased display causes the count of said number of said indicia to include only displayed indicia, the manipulable means including clearing means connected to said electrically actuable indicia for clearing and resetting all of said display indicia thereon, said manipulable means including a first keyboard having a first plurality of keys indicating one of the suits or a no-trump, respectively, a second keyboard having a second plurality of keys indicating one of the pass, double and re-double bids, respectively, and a third keyboard having a third plurality of keys indicating one of the rounds, respectively, said circuit means including addressing means for routing said encoded indicia to a selected location at an intersection of one of said rows and columns in dependence on the number of indicia counted by said counting means and decoding means, and including display selector means for decoding and displaying the decoded indicia routed to said selected location by said addressing means, and wherein said circuit means includes a single pulse generator connected to said first and third keyboards for generating a single pulse, and a first double pulse generator connected to said second keyboard for generating a first double pulse, a second double pulse generator connected to said erase means for generating a second double pulse upon depression of one of said keys, respectively, a divide-by-two counter connected to the output of said forward/backward counter, and wherein said single and said first double pulse generators are connected to the output of said forward/backward counter, for the latter to count in a forward direction, and said second double pulse generator is connected to said forward/backward counter to count in a reverse direction.