Vector generator for a graphic console

Claim 1

A digital generator for digitally drawing dotted oriented line segment of predetermined length on a set of continuous grid points, the elements of said line segment, in digital form, being: the components M and N comprising respectively the projections of the segment on orthogonal X and Y axes; the direction of the segment; the type of vector to be drawn; the type of line to be drawn; characterised in that said vector generator comprises: a data bus; an address bus; means connected to said data bus for forming the dots of the segment comprising: a discrete frequency multiplier for multiplying the frequency of a clock signal by a factor N/M, starting means for enabling said dot forming means and stopping means for terminating said dot forming means; means for identifying the relative order of the parameters M and N; means for initializing said dot forming means; first and second registers connected to the data bus and to the address bus for storing data words which specify the values of the parameters M and N; a register connected to the data bus and to the address for storing an instruction word which specifies the direction of the segment and the type of segment to be drawn; a register connected to the data bus and to the address bus for storing a control word which specifies the type of line to be drawn; a writing pointer comprising two registers, namely an X register and a Y register respectively corresponding to the X and Y axes and connected to said dot forming means; and means for punctuating the drawing of a segment.