Ideographic typewriter

Claim 1

An ideographic typewriter comprising: a keyboard providing keys for generating numerical signals representative of numerical values corresponding to an ideographic character, and command signals representative of operational commands, control means connected to said keyboard for receiving said signals and including decoding means responsive to said command signals for deriving control signals, conversion means for converting said numerical signals corresponding to a said character to signals representative of first and second position parameters, and means for deriving from said second position parameter signal element selection signals, and comparator means for comparing said first position parameter signal with an input first position signal, and for deriving therefrom timing signals, a rotating optical storage device having stored visual representations of characters, a said visual representation of a character comprising character portions and background portions of contrasting light transmission characteristics, each said character representation having first and second position parameters defining its location on said optical storage device, said first position parameter being related to the rotational position of said device, said optical storage device providing to said control means a signal representative of its rotational position, a light source directing light through at least a group of said visual representations having a common value of said first position parameter, a scanner disposed to receive light from an opposed group of said visual representations having a common value of said first position parameter, said scanner comprising a plurality of light-sensitive elements having positions corresponding with the range of said second position parameter of said visual representations, said elements being selectively actuatable in response to said timing and element selection signals, an actuated said element being selectively responsive to the presence and absence of incident light to generate output signals having either of two possible values, visual display means, display control means connected between said scanner and said visual display means and responsive to said scanner output signals and to a said control signal to control said display means to display a visual representation of a character, a store responsive to said scanner output signals and to a said control signal to store said scanner output signals, a printer, and printer control means connected between said store and said printer and responsive to a said control signal to cause said printer to print a character corresponding to said input numerical signals.