Tabulation system

Claim 1

A tabulation system for delivering column and row address information to a medium, said column and row information providing for the tabulation of serial character strings and horizontal and vertical ruled lines to produce a selected array thereof in response to input coded information defining said array, said system comprising detecting means responsive to said input coded information for providing first data information concerning the positions of said vertical and horizontal ruled lines and for providing second data information concerning said serial character strings to said medium; means responsive to said first data information concerning said vertical ruled lines for storing vertical line position information; means responsive to said first data information concerning said horizontal ruled lines for storing row address information corresponding to individual fields of said array between said vertical lines position; column address control means responsive to said stored vertical line position information and row address control means responsive to said stored row address information for providing column and row address information, respectively, to said medium to permit the arraying of one or more serial character strings in one or more selected fields between adjacent vertical line positions, each selected character string being arranged in rows, a first portion of said character string starting from a row address corresponding to the first row of said selected field and the rest of said character string continuing on successive rows between the same vertical line positions each time one row has been filled; means connected to said row address control means and responsive to a current row address for updating said current row address by adding a predetermined number of line spacings each time an end of a field is indicated by said input coded information and for supplying said updated row address to said row address storing means; maximum row address determining means responsive to the last row address stored in said row address storing means, said last row address corresponding to the last row address of an individual field and further responsive to said first data information concerning horizontal line position corresponding to the individual field for determining the maximum row address of said corresponding field, said maximum row address determining mean including comparator means and register means, said comparator means responsive to said last row address of said row address storing means and the contents of said register means for updating said contents of said register means to obtain the maximum row address for storage in said register means when the last-row address of the row address storing means is larger than the contents on the register means and for supply to said row address storing means.