International Business Machines Corporation

George C Macauley

Robert W Roefer

Donald Lloyd Pierce

Thomas Allen Hendrickson

William F Nemecek

Alan B Strickland

A peripheral processor has an architecture wherein the function controlling information of a program is separated from portions of the sequence of execution controlling information and each are stored in the form of tables. The function controlling information takes the form of a table including a plurality of function specifying entries. The function execution sequence controlling information takes the form of a table of pointers. In this invention, function controlling entries, each having a plurality of fields for defining, modifying, and specifying the functions and related data to be executed, need not be repetitively duplicated throughout the program. Instead, the shorter pointers to the function table entries can be provided in the sequence table in the sequence in which the functions are to be executed. In a keyboard display controller application, further economy of storage is obtained by retaining a first level of function specifying information in the sequence table in the form of a bit identifying whether the function to be executed is a complex function, in which case the pointer identifies an entry in the function control statement table, or whether the function to be executed is merely the display of information on the display, in which case the pointer in the sequence table entry specifies an entry in a guidance table.

Interactive transactions processor using sequence table pointers to

A method and apparatus are disclosed for addressing a character generator memory containing symbols common to two or more languages in a common area of the character generator memory. Symbols which are special to the particular language being displayed are stored in one of a plurality of special symbol areas of the character generator memory. One of the special symbol areas contiguous with the common area is identified as a default symbol area. The proper special symbol area of the character generator memory is selected by comparing the high order bits of a display character code with compare bits to determine whether a different special symbol area of the character generator memory is to be substituted for the default area contiguous with the common area. If the compare bits indicate that a different special area of the character generator is to be substituted, the high order bits of the display character code are not directly used to address the character generator memory but are replaced by substitution bits to access that special symbol area unique to the language being displayed.

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Concord, NC, United States of America

George C Macauley