International Business Machines Corporation

Leah J Busboom

Harvey Gene Kiel

Stephen T Eagen

William J Maitland, Jr

Raymond F Romon

Alex A Akiyama

David G Wenz

Jeffery J Van Heuklon

Jeffrey Earl Remfert

Robert John Manulik

Trent L Clausen

Michael E Plute

A system for supporting graphics display sessions on remote terminals contains a processing subsystem dedicated to graphics support. Applications execute on a central processor, and display related graphics commands are executed on the separate graphics controller subsystem. The graphics subsystem is preferably connected to multiple remote terminals over a network, and communicates with them without requiring all work to be performed by the central processor which is executing the applications.

Display station controller

A dependent, nonprogrammable, character-based workstation terminal (DWS) supports a mouse. A terminal controller entirely within the DWS processes and displays mouse motions, but sends mouse button actuations, with the current mouse position, to a single workstation controller (WSC) handling many DWS'. The WSC processes the actuations according to a set of rules, and sends data streams to a main processor (MP) serving multiple WSCs. The MP executes user application programs, partially in response to data streams representing mouse events. The MP executes user application programs, partially in response to data streams representing mouse events. The MP may also send mouse rule sets to the WSCs in data streams.

System for supporting mouse button events of dependent workstation

A method and apparatus for constructing edit mask entry fields for display panel data, in a system including a host processor, a workstation controller, and a number of workstations, each workstation having a keyboard and display screen. The edit mask entry field mask positions are protected when display panel information is modified, by special hardware and software operations performed within the workstation controller. In particular, certain keyboard edit function keystrokes are processed by the workstation controller to permit the edit functions to be performed, without disturbing the position or display panel presentation of preselected edit mask characters.

Method and apparatus for constructing edit mask entry fields with

A computer display has a display processor connected to a presentation space buffer and a screen buffer. The presentation space buffer is larger than the screen buffer, and is divided into a plurality of partitions. Each partition has a partition window which maps into the screen buffer. If a partition is active, its associated partition window is written into the screen buffer at the mapped location. The screen buffer periodically refreshes the display screen, so a plurality of partition windows are displayed to the computer user. One or more scroll groups can be defined, and one or more partitions can be assigned to each scroll group. Each defined scroll group has a vertical scroll trigger and a horizontal scroll trigger. The display monitors the movement of the cursor within a partition window. When the cursor gets close enough to a boundary of a partition window, to trigger a scroll trigger, the display shifts the partition window within its partition and writes this updated partition window into the screen buffer. Updated partition windows are written into the screen buffer for the other partitions in the scroll group.

Display with enhanced scrolling capabilities

In a computing system including a host processor, a workstation controller, and a number of nonprogrammable workstations connected to the workstation controller, a method and apparatus to enable the workstation controller to construct and present action bars and pull-down menus for display at any designated workstation, and to process user interactions generated by keyboard signals at the workstation to control the selection and presentation of action bars and pull-down menus.

Action bar processing on non-programmable workstations

A method and apparatus for displaying entry fields on a workstation display screen, wherein a single entry field may be constructed having selectively positionable segments, and wherein each of the segments are linked together for processing, so that an entry field modification made in any of the segments will result in processing all of the segments for accommodating the modification; the method and apparatus are practiced in a system having a host processor, at least one workstation control interface, and a plurality of workstations.

Method and apparatus for constructing continued entry fields with

A process for displaying cursor information for a plurality of dependent workstations from a remote processor or controller. Prestoring format tables for each dependent workstation in the controller or processor, processing cursor movement keystroke signals within the controller to define and selectively position the cursor for any dependent workstation when a cursor movement keystroke is made in that workstation, and commanding the dependent workstation to display either a selection cursor or a text cursor at the selected position.

Method for constructing selection cursors on dependent workstations

An enhanced fixed function video display terminal having various features for the efficient transmission of data streams. The video display terminal may have a memory for storing substantially more characters than can be displayed to the operator on the display screen width and length. This permits manipulation of data at document page boundaries, scrolling, etc. One or more extended attribute buffers are added to enable characters to be displayed in a variety of fonts, colors, etc. The data stream from the host computer to the display terminal and from the display terminal to the host computer contains data characters and attribute characters which are interleaved for efficiency in input/output programming. When receiving data, the display terminal has the capability of parsing the data stream into data or attribute characters and adding pad characters to completely fill the display buffers. Similarly, the display terminal interleaves data and attribute characters and compacts the data stream by stripping pad characters when sending data back to the host computer.

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Oronoco, MN, United States of America

Leah J Busboom