International Business Machines Corporation

David J Eagle

Andrew J Morrish

Julian D Williams

Graham Luck

Terence K Gibbs

Adrian Mark Clitheroe

Neil Wright-Boulton

Valerie McLaren Findlay

Mark Wayne Huggins

Stuart Neilson Dalgleish

A display apparatus: a display screen on which a display drive generates a picture in response to picture information (R,G,B,H.V) from a video source connected via a releasable connector to the display apparatus. User controls adjust the picture generated by the display drive in response to a manual input. Selection controls are included for selecting one of a plurality of sets of control data for communication to the video source in response to a configuration code input via the user controls.

Display apparatus with selectable communication protocol

An elapsed time recording device includes a counter (130) for incrementally advancing a count value from an initial value towards and beyond a threshold in response to successive clock pulses of a clock signal. Control logic (140) enables the counter (130) to incrementally advance the count value in response to a first input (pin 3) and a second input (pin 1) being at or near a first voltage level, and holds the count value in response to the first input (pin 3) being at or near a second voltage level and the second input (pin 1) being at or near the first voltage level. Setting logic (210) sets the count value to a value beyond the threshold in response to the first input (pin 3) and the second input (pin 1) being at or near the second voltage level when the count value is between the initial value and the threshold. Because the device consists essentially of electronic circuit elements, it can be implemented in the form of an application specific integrated circuit package suitable for high volume manufacture at relatively low cost. The device is therefore favorable for use in mass produced electrical appliances. Because the count value is immediately advanced beyond the threshold in response to removal of the second input voltage, advance of the count value towards the threshold cannot be prevented or delayed by tampering with pin connections of the device.

Elapsed time recording device

Cathode ray tube display apparatus comprises a cathode ray tube display screen for displaying successive frames of a non-interlaced video image in response to excitation by at least one raster-scanned electron beam. A line timebase circuit sequentially addresses each electron beam to successive pixels on the screen in a line of a raster in response to a line timebase sync signal. A frame timebase circuit sequentially addresses each electron beam to successive lines of the raster in response to a frame timebase sync signal. The frame timebase circuit comprises means for offsetting successive frames of the video image in a direction transverse of the lines of the raster by a distance less than the spacing of adjacent lines of the raster. Gaps between adjacent pixels on successive lines of the raster are made invisible to the viewer because the persistence of viewer's eye effectively integrates the image content of successive frames. Also, because the successive frames have the same image content, there is no low-frequency component in the image spectrum below the frame timebase frequency. Therefore, the displayed image is free from objectionable flicker.

Cathode ray tube display apparatus

A CRT display system is described wherein a measure of the beam current generated within the CRT is derived and the voltage across the cathode heater modified as a function of this measure. In this way the optimum voltage across the heater coils is maintained, thus preventing 'cathode stripping' at times of peak beam currents, and optimizing the CRT's working lifetime.

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Chandlers Ford, United Kingdom

David J Eagle