Apparatus with selection circuitry for distributing data blocks from external memory to processing units according to attribute data contained in each data block

Claim 2

An information memory control apparatus comprising: a memory means for storing therein a plurality of information in the form of a plurality of data blocks each containing an information data and an attribute data, wherein said attribute data represents at least a destination to which said information data is to be sent, and wherein each of said plurality of data blocks further contains a synchronizing signal located at the beginning thereof for indicating the beginning position of each data block and an address data indicating an address of the data block in said memory means; an access means for causing said memory means to read out each of said data blocks from said memory means; a selection means directly coupled to said memory means for receiving each data block read out from said memory means and for detecting the attribute data contained in each received data block and for sending each received data block to one of a plurality of output ports of said selection means according to the detected attribute data, said selection means including: a synchronizing signal detecting means for detecting said synchronizing signal; and an address detecting means for detecting said address data and for determining whether or not the detected address data is a desired address data when said synchronizing signal detecting means has detected said synchronizing signal; at least one processing means coupled to a corresponding output port of said selection means for processing said information data of a data block sent to said corresponding output port coupled thereto according to said attribute data; and an output means coupled to said processing means for outputting the processed information data.

Claim 3

An information memory control apparatus comprising: a memory means for storing therein a plurality of information in the form of a plurality of data blocks each containing an information data and an attribute data, wherein said attribute data represents at least a destination to which said information data is to be sent, and wherein said plurality of data blocks contain, as said information data, at least one of character information data representing a character as coded data, image information data and audio information data, wherein each data block containing said audio information data contains, in said attribute data, information representing at least one of the number of quantization bits and sampling frequency of said audio information data; an access means for causing said memory means to read out each of said data blocks from said memory means; a selection means directly coupled to said memory means for receiving each data block read out from said memory means and for detecting the attribute data contained in each received data block and for sending each received data block to one of a plurality of output ports of said selection means according to the detected attribute data; at least one processing means coupled to a corresponding output port of said selection means for processing information data of a data block sent to said corresponding output port coupled thereto according to said attribute data, said processing means comprising at least one of: a character information processing means for converting said character information data to character data of a predetermined format; an image information processing means for converting said image information data to image data of a predetermined format; and an audio information processing means for converting said audio information data to an analog audio signal, wherein said audio information processing means comprises a digital-to-analog converter at least one of whose number of bits and sampling frequency is set by said information in said attribute data contained in each data block containing said audio information data; and an output means coupled to said processing means for outputting the processed information data, said output means comprising at least one of: a character output means coupled to said character information processing means for outputting said character data as a visible character image; an image output means coupled to said image information processing means for outputting said image data as a visible image; and an audio output means coupled to said audio information processing means for outputting said analog audio signal as a sound.

Claim 4

An information memory control apparatus comprising: a memory means for storing therein a plurality of information in the form of a plurality of data blocks each containing an information data and an attribute data, wherein said attribute data represents at least a destination to which said information data is to be sent, and wherein said plurality of data blocks contain, as said information data, at least one of character information data representing a character as coded data, image information data and audio information data, wherein each data block containing said audio information data contains, in said attribute data, information representing at least one of the number of quantization bits and sampling frequency of said audio information data; an access means for causing said memory means to read out each of said data blocks from said memory means; a selection means directly coupled to said memory means for receiving each data block read out from said memory means and for detecting the attribute data contained in each received data block and for sending each received data block to one of a plurality of output ports of said selection means according to the detected attribute data; at least one processing means coupled to a corresponding output port of said selection means for processing information data of a data block sent to said corresponding output port coupled thereto according to said attribute data, said processing means comprising at least one of: a character information processing means for converting said character information data to character data of a predetermined format; an image information processing means for converting said image information data to image data of a predetermined format; and an audio information processing means for converting said audio information data to an analog audio signal, wherein said audio information processing means comprises a digital-to-analog converter at least one of whose number of bits and sampling frequency is set by said information in said attribute data contained in each data block containing said audio information data; and an output means coupled to said processing means for outputting the processed information data, said output means comprising at least one of: a character output means coupled to said character information processing means for outputting said character data as a visible character image; an image output means coupled to said image information processing means for outputting said image data as a visible image; and an audio output means coupled to said audio information processing means for outputting said analog audio signal as a sound.