The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 11, 1990
Filed:
Nov. 28, 1988
Richard H Jundanian, Methuen, MA (US);
David C Hempstead, Methuen, MA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
This invention provides a method and apparatus for controlling the type of information displayed at each display pixel on the video monitor of a video display system. A number of video RAMs are provided which number is at least equal to the number of different types of information. A bitmap is stored for each type of information in the video RAMs in interspersed fashion, a selected number of bits for select display pixels of the bitmap for a given type of information being simultaneously stored in said RAMs, followed for each RAM by the selected number of bits for the same selected display pixels for the bitmap of at least one other information type. No more than one bitmap bit for a given display pixel is stored in any video RAM. The addressing of the RAMs for read out of the bitmap is shifted so that bits for the same display pixels for all of the bitmaps are simultaneously read out from the RAMs. The bits of the bitmaps for each display pixel are then prioritized, the prioritizing including determining and generating an indication of the type of information which has priorty and is to be displayed at each display pixel.