Ascii Corporation

Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Shibaura Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd.

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Takatoshi Ishii

Kazuhiko Nishi

Ryozo Yamashita

Takatoshi Okumura

Shigemitsu Yamaoka

Makoto Kaneko

Minoru Morimoto

Katsumi Amano

Kiyoshi Kinoshita

Taiju Ogawa

Shozo Omae

Kazuya Kishioka

Mitsuo Kumahara

Osamu Touyama

Syuko Takahashi

A video display control system displays a multicolor animation pattern on a screen of a video display unit. The video display control system is mainly constructed by a video RAM (VRAM) and a video display processor (VDP). The VRAM stores animation pattern data, display position data and at least two color data. The VDP reads these data and makes an animation pattern image displayed in at least two colors at a display position on the screen. The animation pattern image, two colors and display position are determined by the animation pattern data, two color data and display position data. In another video display control system, the VRAM stores at least two sets of animation pattern data, display position data and color data. When displaying two animation patterns, the VDP effects a logical operation on the two color data with respect to the overlapping portion of the two patterns and makes the overlapping portion displayed in a new color corresponding to the operation result. When the animation patterns overlaps, the VDP can also deliver a collision signal in place of the logical operation, thereby enabling a CPU to recognize the position of the overlapping portion.

Video display control system for animation pattern image

A character display apparatus comprises at least a memory for storing a character code designating a desirable character and attribute data designating an attribute thereof as one pair of data; a first character generator for pre-storing font data corresponding to English characters and figures; a second character generator for pre-storing font data corresponding to Chinese characters; a judgment portion and a control portion. The judgment portion judges whether one character is designated by one character code or two or more character codes which are read from the memory in accordance with scanning of a display screen. Based on the judgment result of this judgment portion, character reading operation of the control portion is controlled. Next, in the case where the alpha-numeric characters are to be displayed, the font data corresponding to the character code read from the memory are read from the first character generator so that each of the alpha-numeric characters will be displayed in the attribute represented by the attribute data accompanied with the character code under control of the control portion. On the other hand, in the case where the Chinese characters are to be displayed, the font data corresponding to the character code read from the memory are read from the second character generator so that each Chinese character will be displayed in the attribute represented by the attribute data accompanied with the character code.

Character display apparatus

A method for generating display patterns using a display memory which stores one bit of data for each pixel of a display apparatus. The stored data represents an outline of a display pattern. The stored data is consecutively read to generate dot data corresponding to the pattern being displayed. Character data corresponding to a current display pixel is also read from a display memory. Then buffer data which relates to a current scan line and the scan line directly above are read from a line buffer. Dot data is generated by performing logical computations on the current pixel data and line buffer data relating to the scan line. The dot data is then written into the line buffer for display.

Method for generating patterns based on outline data

A display apparatus consists of a display memory (VRAM), a data modifier circuit and a display unit at least. The display unit, such as a CRT display unit, has a plurality of display dots which include red, green and blue color dots. The display memory must be cleaned at a primary stage and thereafter a plurality of display codes corresponding to only display dots on the outlines of the color image must be written into the display memory. The display codes are converted into display data which indicate red, green and blue color components. The display codes are successively read out from the display memory and supplied to the data modifier circuit wherein the display data are modified so as to compensate the display data which are not written into the display memory. The display unit displays the image corresponding to the modified display data on the screen thereof.

Display apparatus

A memory system is provided with two data buffers, respectively, in the row and column directions of a memory array. The system is capable of operating either one of the two data buffers as input/output buffers in accordance with reading or writing operations on the contents of the memory array. Outputs from the memory array are inverted to form an inverted array. All bits along respective columns of the array are ANDed together to obtain an ANDed bit value for each column of the inverted array.

Memory system for ANDing data bits along columns of an inverted memory

A memory storage and accessing device is constituted by a plurality of plane memories. Memory elements are arranged in each plane memory two-dimensionally, and a plurality of image data are stored in a word direction in each plane memory. In addition, plural plane memories are disposed in a pixel direction. Hence, plural image data are stored two-dimensionally in word and pixel directions. The memory device is constituted such that a port connected by a word data bus and another port connected by a pixel data bus are provided therein. Due to these two ports, it is possible to perform an independent access so as to independently read out and write in word data and pixel data. The memory storage and accessing device is capable of masking bits of data and memory units, using both static and dynamic masks. In the static mask, mask data are applied all at once in one memory cycle, or the mask data are supplied to the memory device at plural times in one memory cycle. In the dynamic mask, the mask data are supplied to the memory device at plural times in one memory cycle and the mask positions can be sequentially changed. The memory storage and accessing device of the present invention is also capable of comparing pixel and word data with compare data in each plane memory and in combination with a masking operation.

Apparatus for storing and accessing image data to be displayed on a

A display control circuit system is disclosed which, while maintaining the compatibility of software perfectly, can realize various specifications of the software, provides for a gradation display in an LCD display to realize substantially the same level of access as in a CRT display, permits a configuration control, and, when one or more bits are expanded in the conventional software, can protect the function-expanded bit(s). The display control system includes a mode selector to select either a mode for controlling the display of CRT or a mode for controlling the display of LCD, a controller for controlling the CRT display control, and a controller for controlling the LCD display control.

Display control system

A display control circuit system is disclosed which, while maintaining the compatibility of software perfectly, can realize various specifications of the software, provides for a gradation display in an LCD display to realize substantially the same level of access as in a CRT display, permits a configuration control, and, when one or more bits are expanded in the conventional software, can protect the function-expanded bit(s). The display control system includes a mode selector to select either a mode for controlling the display of CRT or a mode for controlling the display of LCD, a controller for controlling the CRT display, and a controller for controlling the LCD display control.

A display apparatus consists of a display memory (VRAM), a data modifier circuit and a display unit at least. The display unit, such as a CRT display unit, has a plurality of display dots which include red, green and blue color dots. The display memory must be cleared at a primary stage and thereafter a plurality of display codes corresponding to only display dots on the outlines of the color image must be written into the display memory. The display codes are converted into display data which indicate red, green and blue color components. The display codes are successively read out from the display memory and supplied to the data modifier circuit wherein the display data are modified so as to compensate the display data which are not written into the display memory. The display unit displays the image corresponding to the modified display data on the screen thereof.

A display control apparatus is provided in which the moving image of an object is successively compounded with a color picture image from an external source, so as to obtain a compounded image in which the resulting image of the object appears to be moving with respect to the color picture image. The display control apparatus of the present invention includes a register unit for storing color range selecting data therein and circuitry for selecting one of first color image data corresponding to signals which are supplied from an external device, e.g. television camera, and second color image data read from a video memory, e.g. a video random access memory (VRAM). Using data comparison circuitry, the value of color image data selected by the selection circuitry, is compared with the value of the color range selecting data stored in the register unit. Based on the comparison result of the comparator circuitry, either the first color image data or second color image data is selected using a data selector. Data rewriting circuitry is also provided for displacing, i.e. successively rewriting, the second color image data in the video memory, by the first color image data. The data selector supplies the selected color image data to a D/A converter in which color image data to be displayed are converted into predetermined analog image signals. These analog image signals are then supplied to an external display device on which a color image corresponding to the analog image signals is displayed on the screen thereof.

Display control apparatus for displacing and displacing color image data

A video display control system is capable of moving a part of a still image from a first display area to a second display area on a screen. The video display control system includes a memory composed of a plurality of memory locations for storing a plurality of display data representative of images of display elements on the screen. First and second registers retain first and second area data representative of the first and second display areas, and an address data generator generates from these area data first and second address data, the first address data indicating memory locations which store display data corresponding to the first display area, the second address data indicating second memory locations which store display data corresponding to the second display area. A reading circuit reads the display data in the first memory locations in accordance with the first address data, while a writing circuit writes the read display data into the second memory locations in accordance with the second address data. This video display control system further includes another reading circuit and an operation circuit. This reading circuit reads the display data in the second memory locations and feeds the read display data to the operation circuit which effects an operation such as a logical operation or a transparency processing on each pair of the display data read from the first and second memory locations.

Video display control system for moving display images

An image data processing system operates so that foreground color codes are held in a foreground register, background color codes are held in a background register, and the foreground or background color codes are selectively output by a selector according to the patterns of the pattern data or character fonts to be extended to color codes. Accordingly the pattern data or character font patterns can be extended quickly to the foreground or background color codes. Also, to extend the same pattern data repetitively and quickly to the foreground or background color codes, a rotator or selector is used to enable the pattern data to be used repetitively, and according to the output value thereof the foreground or background register is selected.

Image data processing system

A video RAM write control circuit has a video RAM for storing pattern data of one frame at addresses thereof which correspond to display positions, and a control circuit for generating write pattern data and write addresses. The video RAM stores a pattern which is continuous in the horizontal direction, at consecutive addresses thereof. Each row on the screen consists of several rasters. A video RAM address has a memory address representing a position in the horizontal direction, in its lower bits, so well as a raster address representing a raster position of the row, at upper bits thereof. A write address is rotated toward the MSB by the number of bits of the raster address, and a resultant permuted address is supplied to the video RAM.

Display control apparatus for supplying display data to raster scanning

An image display apparatus reads color data and attribute data accompanied with the color data from a RAM of a look-up table (LUT) in accordance with each color code read from a video memory (VRAM). The read color data is subjected to a data modification determined by the read attribute data, and a color of each display dot is determined in accordance with the color data obtained as the result of the data modification. According to this image display apparatus, an image and the color thereof can be displayed without storing all the color codes of the image into the VRAM, so that the load on the CPU can be reduced and the image can be displayed at a high speed. The LUT can be omitted by storing, correspondingly to each display dot, display data composed of color data and attribute data in the VRAM. The circuit for effecting the data modification may comprise a plurality of registers and an operation circuit for effecting an operation on data contained in the registers. In this case, the registers and the operation circuit are controlled in accordance with the read attribute data to obtain various display effects such as Gouraud Shading and Phong Shading.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Takatoshi Ishii