Ing. C. Olivetti & C., S.p.a.

Mario Figini

Filippo Demonte

Marcello Boella

Filippo DeMonte

Flippo Demonte

Francesco Mascaro

Arturo Rolfo

Gian V Mia

Michele Monasterolo

A print unit for an electronic typewriter comprising a removable character-carrying disc with flexible spokes which is operated by a selector motor which in turn is controlled by a control circuit. The character-carrying disc is provided with a plurality of reflective identification plates and a recognition circuit detects the pattern of the reflective plates present in selected ones of a series of predetermined angular sectors of the disc to identify some characteristics of the disc, e.g. typing pitch and character set. The angular position of the disc is detected by a position transducer which generates a position signal for the control circuit having a period which is double the angular distance between two contiguous character-carrying spokes discriminating the spokes at even positions from those at odd positions. In an initialization phase, a zeroing circuit coarsely positions the character-carrying disc in a zero area defined by a synchronization plate adjacent a plate-free gap and activates the control circuit to stop the character-carrying disc in a zero position in respect of a spoke having a predetermined parity. The print unit is provided with phase regulation elements for the position transducer and for the circuit for recognition of the reflective plates on the character-carrying disc.

Rotary character-carrying member and selector device therefor for a

The typing arrangement includes a character-bearing member of the 'daisy wheel' type, the symbols of which can be printed at the point of printing either alone or in the form of combinations of successive strikes of certain symbols for constituting a font of printable characters and other symbols which is appreciably greater than the number of symbols on the daisy wheel, and adapted to meet the printing requirements of all the graphical symbols derived from one common alphabetical stem. Each printable character has an individual code which is recognizable by the control circuits of the arrangement which put into operation one or several printing cycles using selection of the symbol or of the symbols on the daisy wheel which make up the character and the displacements of the daisy wheel associated with the printing of the various component symbols. Machines which employ this arrangement may alternatively make use of specific national daisy wheel which is associated in an unequivocal manner with the keyboard of the machine.

Typing device for typing in several languages by combining

An electronic typewriter comprises a character-bearing disk movable along the platen and a selector to space selected characters according to a plurality of constant spaces or proportional spaces. A permanent, alterable memory has a series of locations, wherein are recorded positioning information for the disk and the platen and constant phrases. A series of keys are operable to select associated registers of the memory to execute the movement of the disk or the printing of the recorded constant phrases, as recorded. An evidence selector is further operable at any point of the printing line to cause an evidence of printed character as bold-facing or underlining and a cancel key is provided to automatically cancel the already printed characters. The characters are carried by regularly spaced petals of the disk. The characters of proportional spaces have minimum, small, medium and large widths and are regularly spaced along the printing line by providing two different offsets of the characters with respect to the axis of the petals and a preliminary fixed spacing of the disk for the characters of medium and large width.

Electronic typewriter

An electronic typewriter comprises a character-bearing disk movable along the platen and a selector to space selected characters according to a plurality of constant spaces or proportional spaces. The electronic unit provides a line buffer on which the entered characters of a line are sequentially stored and a series of editing functions to have the entered characters directly printed in editing form and a permanent, alterable memory wherein are recorded positioning information for the disk and constant phrases to be printed can be recorded and recalled upon request of the operator. Justification of a line is commanded by a selector which allows the printing of entered characters up to a set zone of the printing line while stores, without printing, the remaining characters on the line buffer. Following actuation of a service key causes the delayed printing of stored part of the line aligned to the fixed right margin. An evidence selector is further operable at any point of the printing line to cause an evidence of printed character as bold-facing or underlining and a cancel key is provided to automatically cancel the already printed characters.

The keyboard of an electronic typewriter with a daisywheel print unit on a carriage includes a CENTER key and REPEAT key. With the print unit positioned where an insertion is to be made in a line being set up blind, these keys are actuated and the character to be inserted are typed in. The usable area for typing is continually shown on a two-digit display device. When a service key is then depressed, the line is printed with the inserted character entered by appropriate compression or expansion of empty spaces adjacent the characters to be inserted. The typewriter further comprises a line space memory and a control circuit which signals the number of line spacing commands which can still be carried into effect before the last line to be typed on the sheet.

Electronic typewriter with means for positioning the typed member

An electronic typewriter having a display device which shows just the last entered characters of a printing line. The typewriter comprises a selector for an immediate typing mode of the entered character, a line/line mode in which each line is set up in memory and typed on operating a service key, and a word/word mode in which the set up words are typed word by word, i.e. on each operation of the space bar. This facilitates typing with checking to eliminate all errors. The display device shows emphasized characters, different kinds of emphasis (heavy type, light type on dark background being indicated by different luminous dot patterns under the characters. The display device is of the dot matrix type and, by suitable circuits thereto superposed characters, e.g. 0 and 1 yielding .phi., are correctly shown.

Electronic typewriter with display device

Characters are typed in reverse, i.e. light characters on a dark background by first typing all over the field of the character using an ink ribbon, back spacing and typing the character using a correcting ribbon. The first typing may be effected with a solid character covering the whole field in one or a few operations but, in the preferred embodiment is effected by repeatedly typing a vertical bar with tiny line feed increments, say 1/120'. The first typing may take place on depression of a special key, which also effects the back spacing and the correcting ribbon; the character key is then struck. Preferably the whole sequence takes place automatically upon depression of the character key while a mode selector is in REVERSE mode.

Machine for typing characters

In an electronic computer a device for selecting the number of decimal digits to be printed in the results is adapted to cause the automatic setting of the decimal point in each result to be printed. Inhibition of this automatic setting is obtained by depressing the conventional decimal point key on the computer keyboard. The computer is of the microprogrammed type and includes a read-only memory storing micro-programs for detecting and testing the position of the selecting device.

Electronic computer with automatic decimal point setting means

In a computer having a keyboard for entry of data represented by a series of bytes and/or instructions, processor is provided for processing data entered via the keyboard with a control unit controlling the entry and processing of data. An activatable guiding device including a single digit display instructs the operator by displaying as a number of machine conditions to the operator, a number of signals corresponding to a plurality of configurations of a single byte output from the processor. The control unit generates an activating instruction for activating the display.

Computer operator guide device

An electronic computer is provided with a numerical keyboard, a microprogrammed CPU, as well as RAMs and ROMs, some of them of pluggable type. A pluggable ROM stores a plurality of programs and comprises a portion formed of an associated plurality of registers each one storing a jump instruction and the associated programs. The numerical addresses of said registers are represented by a series of numerals which can be entered by the keyboard. Programs can be entered from the numerical keyboard into a RAM memory, in form of a sequence of numerical codes, each code corresponding to a subroutine prerecorded in a ROM. Each program so 'learned' by the computer can be repeatedly executed by depressing a fixed code on the keyboard.

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Bosco Marengo, Italy

Mario Figini