Television display control apparatus
First Claim
1. Display control apparatus for use with a television receiver including video signal input terminals, a display tube, and means for scanning said display tube at a predetermined rate, comprisingmemory means having a multiplicity of discrete digital storage positions, each of said storage positions corresponding to a preselected image area of said display tube,data processor means including storage means for storing therein digital data representing a plurality of prescribed image devices, wherein one of said image devices is a ball intended to move continuously on the display for at least some period of time, and wherein said data processor storage means has stored therein data corresponding to preselected increments of ball movement in horizontal and vertical directions, said increments defining different preselected angular directions for said ball image device and being measured by preselected numbers of said image areas,means for selectively writing digital data into selected ones of said storage positions, said storage positions being selected to correspond to a predetermined image to be displayed on said display tube,means for sequentially reading stored data from said storage positions at said predetermined scanning rate, with each storage position being read essentially as the predetermined image area of the display tube corresponding to that storage position is being scanned, andmeans responsive to said means for sequentially reading for generating a video signal adapted to be coupled to the video signal input terminals of a television receiver.
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Abstract
Keyboard-controlled apparatus for producing video signals for standard television receivers includes a random access memory having a multiplicity of storage positions each of which corresponds to a preselected discrete portion of the TV raster. Data stored in the random access memory is sequentially read from memory in synchronism with the scanning of the television receiver so that a desired video signal is generated at each discrete position of the cathode ray beam. Data is read into the random access memory at preselected storage positions depending upon a particular image to be displayed. The data writing process is under the control of a micro-processor which is programmed to cause the stored image data to be varied in accordance with the condition of the user-controlled keyboard.
360 Citations
17 Claims
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1. Display control apparatus for use with a television receiver including video signal input terminals, a display tube, and means for scanning said display tube at a predetermined rate, comprising
memory means having a multiplicity of discrete digital storage positions, each of said storage positions corresponding to a preselected image area of said display tube, data processor means including storage means for storing therein digital data representing a plurality of prescribed image devices, wherein one of said image devices is a ball intended to move continuously on the display for at least some period of time, and wherein said data processor storage means has stored therein data corresponding to preselected increments of ball movement in horizontal and vertical directions, said increments defining different preselected angular directions for said ball image device and being measured by preselected numbers of said image areas, means for selectively writing digital data into selected ones of said storage positions, said storage positions being selected to correspond to a predetermined image to be displayed on said display tube, means for sequentially reading stored data from said storage positions at said predetermined scanning rate, with each storage position being read essentially as the predetermined image area of the display tube corresponding to that storage position is being scanned, and means responsive to said means for sequentially reading for generating a video signal adapted to be coupled to the video signal input terminals of a television receiver.
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9. Display control apparatus for use with a television receiver including video signal input terminals, a display tube, and means for scanning said display tube at a predetermined rate, comprising
a random access memory having a multiplicity of discrete digital storage positions, each of said storage positions corresponding to a preselected image area of said display tube, data processor means including storage means for storing a plurality of prescribed image devices, at least one of said image devices comprising a player movable under the control of a user, game control means having first manually actuable means for moving said player image device horizontally and vertically, means responsive to said game control means and said data processor means for selectively writing one of said preselected image devices into selected ones of said storage positions, said storage positions being selected to correspond to a predetermined image to be displayed on said display tube, said data processing means including means responsive to said first manually actuable means for erasing the player image device stored in said random access memory, and means for writing said player image device at a new address in said random access memory corresponding to a predetermined new address, means for sequentially reading stored data from said memory positions at said predetermined scanning rate, with each storage position being read essentially as the predetermined image area of the display tube corresponding to that storage position is being scanned, and means responsive to said means for sequentially reading for generating a video signal adapted to be coupled to the video signal input terminals of a television receiver.
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12. Apparatus for playing games by displaying and manipulating player and ball image devices on the screen of a display tube, comprising
first means for generating a video signal representing a linear player image device aligned in a first direction, second means for generating a video signal representing a ball image device, manually operable game control means, and means responsive to said manually operable game control means for causing said first means to generate a video signal representing the player image device rotated so that it is aligned in a second direction different from said first direction.
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14. Apparatus for playing games by displaying and manipulating player and ball image devices on the screen of a display tube, wherein the player image device is manually controlled and the ball image device moves continuously and is deflected from said player image device, the improvement comprising:
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first means for generating a video signal representing a player image device; second means for generating a video signal representing a ball image device; manually operable game control means for moving said player image device linearly and for rotating said player image device; and means responsive to said manually operable game control means for causing said second means to generate a video signal representing the ball image device deflected in one of a plurality of preselected directions. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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Specification