Gilbarco Inc.

Hans B Atchley

John J Ronchetti, Sr

A system (10) for proportionately spacing a plurality of characters is disclosed. The system includes a memory for storing a character font defining a group of characters which may be individually selected. Each selectable character contains at least one matrix of pixels with each matrix containing a plurality of rows of pixels with each row having pixels extending in a direction of reading of the pixels from the memory. Visible pixels in the at least one matrix of each selectable character define a visible shape which is stored in the memory as a first binary value. Background pixels in the at least one matrix of each selectable character, which are a remainder of a total number of pixels in the at least one matrix of each selectable character, are stored in the memory as a second binary value. A central processing unit (12) controls reading from the memory each of the rows of pixels from the at least one matrix of each of a plurality of characters in a sequence of pixel groups with each pixel group containing a fixed number of pixels. The central processing unit produce processed pixel groups containing the proportionately spaced plurality of characters by processing individual pixels within the sequence of pixel groups of the plurality of characters from the selected row. Each processed pixel group contains the fixed number of pixels including visible pixels from at least one character of the plurality of characters.

System for processing individual pixels to produce proportionately

A fuel dispenser for installation in a service station equipped with a dispenser control console includes a housing, a pump to pump fuel through the housing, a fuel flow meter in the housing, a switch actuable to indicate fuel is to be pumped through the housing, a display on the housing to display the amount of fuel pumped through the housing, and a dispenser control. The dispenser control includes a plurality of microcontroller nodes and a communications bus connecting the microcontroller nodes. A first node is associated with the switch, pump and fuel flow meter, a second node is associated with the display, and a third node is associated with a data link to the dispenser control console. A user may indicate fuel is to be pumped by actuating the switch and generating a signal to the first node, with the first node activating the pump and communicating fuel amount data onto the communications bus, the second node responding to fuel amount data on the bus to display the amount of fuel pumped, and the third node generating a signal to communicate the fuel amount data to the dispenser control console.

Fuel dispenser electronics design

An apparatus for displaying video information includes a video display screen, a screen buffer, a frame buffer, and a video image data assembly module. The module assembles data from linked lists of screen objects, segment objects and field objects which identify images stored in the frame buffer into video image data to store in the screen buffer to be displayed on said screen. Data elements in the lists are linked in a hierarchical arrangement of most-significant to least-significant data elements, with significance denoted by the usual size of the data element as displayed on said screen, so that selecting data from an upper one of the members of a hierarchical list thereby selects data from a lower member by virtue of the linking of the lower member to the upper member. A television signal source supplies television signals to the video image data assembly module as data for one of the linked lists, A communication link to the video image data assembly module receives data to be listed in a linked list for display and data indicative of which of the linked lists is to be selected for assembly into the video image.

Growing community of inventors

Greensboro, NC, United States of America

Hans B Atchley