CHARACTER FORMAT CONTROL APPARATUS AND METHOD

摘要

Format control apparatus enables the printing or display of characters with selectively controllable spacing. Data which represents characters is stored in a buffer store (42) and applied to address a character generator (50) which provides the relevant dot row information of the characters under the control of a row counter (62). The output of the character generator (50) is supplied in parallel to a first shift register (64) which is controlled by a clock divider circuit (54). A serial output from the first shift register (64) is applied to a second shift register (66) coupled to a label (68) which supplies data in a group of parallel bits adapted to a utilization device for the formatted character information. The row counter (62) and clock divider circuit (54) are settable under the control of a mode control circuit (48) to enable the formatting of selectively spaced characters. The character generator (50) may store a plurality of selectable character fonts. A settable character counter (46) controls the number of characters in a line of characters.