Internal test circuits for color palette device

Claim 2

A palette device controllable by a digital computer to produce signals representing color for a color display device, said palette device comprising: a digital video input for receiving a stream of digital video signals representing a color display; a look-up table memory connected to said digital video input and employing each digital video signal as an address for recall of a color code consisting of a plurality of bits stored therein; a digital to analog conversion circuit connected between said look-up table memory and an output of the palette device for connection to the color display device, said digital to analog conversion circuit converting said color codes recalled from said look-up table memory into analog video signals; and accumulator circuitry connected to the look-up table memory to receive said color codes recalled from said look-up table memory, said accumulator detecting the number of bits within the plurality of bits of each color code recalled from said look-up table memory having a particular state and accumulating said detected number of bits for each color code over a period of time between vertical synchronization pulses to thereby generate an externally accessible count of the number of bits having a particular state that are supplied at a given set of outputs of the memory over a period of time between vertical synchronization pulses.

Claim 3

The palette device of claim 1 further comprising a selector circuit having a decoder with inputs for access signals selecting the color to be counted for access from among a plurality of selections.

Claim 4

The palette device of claim 2 further comprising an identifying circuit for storing an identification code for the palette device, said selector circuit connected to access said identifying circuit among the plurality of selections.

Claim 5

The palette device of claim 2 wherein said accumulator circuitry has a register for holding the count and accessible by external assertion of a read signal.

Claim 6

The palette device of claim 1 wherein said look-up table memory includes three bits for three sets of color information and the palette device has a register coupled to said accumulator to select and hold counts of bits of a given state output by said memory for each of the three sets of color information.

Claim 7

The palette device of claim 5 further comprising a read circuit responsive to three successive assertions of an external read signal to successively access said register coupled to said accumulator while the access signal continues.

Claim 8

The palette device of claim 1 wherein the look-up table memory has bytes and said accumulator circuitry includes an accumulator of all of the ones in all of the bytes accessed over the period of time in a defined set of byte locations in the memory.

Claim 9

The palette device of claim 1 wherein the conversion circuit includes a plurality of digital to analog converters for generating analog outputs, and a comparing circuit to generate respective logic states representative of a comparison between pairs of the analog outputs, said logic states externally accessible.

Claim 10

The palette device of claim 8 further comprising a test register for holding the logic states representing the comparison and a selection decoder responsive to an access signal to access said register.

Claim 11

A computer graphics system comprising: a digital computer; a video memory connected to said digital computer and operable to store color codes representing color information; a palette device connected to said video memory and accessible by said digital computer to produce signals representing color for a color display device, said palette device including a look-up table memory having sets of bits stored therein representing color data words output in response to assertion of the color codes from the video memory, said color data words having a plurality of bits; a digital to analog conversion circuit connected to convert the color data words from said look-up table memory and thereby supply an analog color signal as output from the palette device; and accumulator circuitry connected to the look-up table memory to receive said color data words recalled from said look-up table memory, said accumulator detecting the number of bits within the plurality of bits of each color data word recalled from said look-up table memory having a particular state and accumulating said detected number of bits for each color data word over a period of time between vertical synchronization pulses to thereby generate an externally accessible count of the number of bits having a particular state that are supplied at a given set of outputs of the memory over a period of time between vertical synchronization pulses.

Claim 12

A computer graphics system comprising: a digital computer; a video memory connected to said digital computer and operable to store color codes representing color information; a palette device connected to said video memory and accessible by said digital computer to produce signals representing color for a color display device, said palette device including a look-up table memory having sets of bits stored therein representing color data words output in response to assertion of the color codes from the video memory, said color data words having a plurality of bits; a digital to analog conversion circuit connected to convert the color data words from said look-up table memory and thereby supply an analog color signal as output from the palette device; and accumulator circuitry connected to the look-up table memory to receive said color data words recalled from said look-up table memory, said accumulator detecting the number of bits within the plurality of bits of each color data word recalled from said look-up table memory having a particular state and accumulating said detected number of bits for each color data word over a period of time between vertical synchronization pulses to thereby generate an externally accessible count of the number of bits having a particular state that are supplied at a given set of outputs of the memory over a period of time between vertical synchronization pulses.

Claim 13

The computer graphics system of claim 10 further comprising a selector circuit having a decoder with inputs connected to said digital computer to select the colors to be counted for access from among a plurality of selections.

Claim 14

The computer graphics system of claim 11 further comprising an identifying circuit for storing an identification code for the palette device, said selector circuit connected to access said identifying circuit among the plurality of selections.

Claim 15

The computer graphics system of claim 10 wherein said accumulator circuitry has a register for holding the count and accessible by external assertion of a read signal from the digital computer.

Claim 16

The computer graphics system of claim 10 wherein said digital computer includes circuitry for comparing the count read from the accumulator circuitry of said palette device with a value expected in proper operation, and supplying a warning when the count departs from the expected value.

Claim 17

The computer graphics system of claim 10 wherein said look-up table memory includes three bits for three sets of color information and the palette device has a register coupled to said accumulator to select and hold counts of bits of a given state output by said memory for each of the three sets of color information.

Claim 18

The computer graphics system of claim 15 further comprising a read circuit responsive to three successive assertions of a read signal from said digital computer to successively access said register coupled to said accumulator while the access signal continues.

Claim 19

The computer graphics system of claim 10 wherein the look-up table memory has bytes and said accumulator circuitry includes an accumulator of all of the ones in all of the bytes accessed over the period of time in a defined set of byte locations in the memory.

Claim 20

The computer graphics system of claim 10 further comprising a color display device connected to the conversion circuit.

Claim 21

The computer graphics system of claim 10 wherein the conversion circuit includes a plurality of digital to analog converters for generating analog outputs, and a comparing circuit to generate respective logic states representative of a comparison between pairs of the analog outputs, said logic states accessible by said digital computer.

Claim 22

The computer graphics system of claim 19 further comprising a test register for holding the logic states representing the comparison and a selection decoder responsive to an access signal from said digital computer to access said register.