Sewing machine with electronic patterning system

Abstract

The electronic patterning system of a sewing machine comprises a main pattern memory consisting of a large number of individually addressable storage locations. Instead of each storage location storing only the stitch-control data for one stitch of one pattern, one section of each of at least some of the storage locations stores stitch-control data pertaining to one stitch of one pattern but with another section of the same storage location storing stitch-control data pertaining to a different stitch, e.g., a stitch of a completely different pattern. Thus, it may be that for some stored patterns one section of each storage location used for a pattern stores needle-bar position commands with the other section of each such storage location storing cloth-feed commands. However, if the cloth-feed commands would anyway be identical, one after the next, for each stitch of the pattern, the second sections of these storage locations are not wasted on storage of this invariant cloth-feed command data, but instead are used, for example, for storing needle-bar position commands of an entirely different pattern, with the invariant cloth-feed command data being applied to the cloth-feeding unit of the machine not from the pattern memory but instead from an auxiliary memory which responds to selection of this pattern by applying the requisite unvarying cloth-feed command data for such pattern to the cloth-feeding unit of the machine.