Display apparatus and radio selective calling receiver

Abstract: A radio selective calling receiver which allows anybody to read characters easily which disappear when a message is scrolled up on a screen by means of a simple display. A control circuit 2 is used to scroll the message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and to switch characters on a line which gradually disappear due to the scrolling to a simple display which can be recognized as characters at a point when they cannot be recognized as characters, based on a switch operation of a switching circuit 5.

Description: The present invention relates to display apparatus, particularly, but not exclusively, for a radio selective calling receiver having a display function. Conventionally, there is a known radio selective calling receiver having a message display function. This type of a radio selective calling receiver has generally a display unit which is not large enough to display an entire long message at a time and which therefore scrolls such a long message in units of a column or a line to display the entire message. As an example, there is disclosed a radio selective calling receiver in which a message is scrolled in units of a dot on a screen, for example, in Japanese Non-examined Patent Publication No. HEI 1-265733. In this radio selective calling receiver, if an attempt is made to display a_message having 21 characters of 123 456ABCD789 on a display unit on which 14 characters can be displayed on two lines, initially 14 characters of 123 456ABCD are displayed from the beginning of the message as shown in Fig. 1A. When the currently-displayed seven characters are scrolled up in units of a dot to display seven characters of 789 which are not displayed yet, the upper dots of 123 on the first line gradually disappear as shown in Fig. 1B and the upper dots of 789 on the third line begin to appear at the same time. In the conventional radio selective calling receiver, however, there is a problem that, when a part of the characters on the uppermost line disappears due to the scrolling as described in the above, it becomes very hard to recognize the characters, which makes it impossible to check the connection with a part of the message on the lower line. The present invention is provided to solve the above problem. It is therefore an object of at least the preferred embodiment of the present invention to provide a radio selective calling receiver which allows a message to be easily read by anybody with a definitive display showing a connection in a message being scrolled on a screen. In a first aspect, the present invention as defined in Claim 1 provides apparatus adapted to display a message on a screen, said apparatus comprising means adapted to scroll vertically said message on said screen; and means adapted to modify partially displayed lines of characters of the message so that the upper portion of each of said partially displayed line is always displayed on said screen. In a second aspect, the present invention provides a radio selective call receiver comprising apparatus as described above for displaying a message received by the receiver. Preferably, the radio selective calling receiver comprises a receiving circuit for receiving a radio selective call signal; said modifying means comprising a control circuit for detecting a call to the receiver based on said received radio selective call signal and outputting signals to a display circuit to display a message on a screen; and said scrolling means comprising a switching circuit for performing a switching operation to scroll vertically said message on said screen. In a first preferred embodiment, the radio selective calling receiver has a control circuit for scrolling a message displayed on a screen vertically in units of a dot and then switching characters on the line gradually disappearing due to the scrolling to a simple display which can be recognized as characters when it becomes impossible to recognize them as characters based on a switch operation of a switching circuit. In a second preferred embodiment, the selective calling receiver has a control circuit for scrolling a message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and then, if the message is scrolled up, erasing the characters on the uppermost line gradually from the lower dots without scrolling the characters on the uppermost line or, if the message is scrolled down, displaying the characters from the upper dots of the characters on the uppermost line which appear due to the scrolling, based on a switch operation of the switching circuit. In a third preferred embodiment, the radio selective calling receiver has a control circuit for scrolling a message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and then, if the message is scrolled down, switching the simple display which can be recognized as characters to the normal display according to the number of the displayed dots on the characters on the uppermost line which appear due to the scrolling, based on a switch operation of the switching circuit. Preferred features of the present invention will now be described, purely by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:- Figs. 1A and 1B are screen display diagrams illustrating a change caused by a scroll operation for a message displayed in a conventional radio selective calling receiver; Fig. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a radio selective calling receiver; Figs. 3A and 3B are screen display diagrams illustrating a change caused by a scroll operation for a message displayed in the radio selective calling receiver; Figs. 4A and 4B are screen display diagrams illustrating a change caused by another scroll operation for a message displayed in the radio selective calling receiver; Figs. 5A and 5B are screen display diagrams illustrating a change caused by still another scroll operation for a message displayed in the radio selective calling receiver; and Fig. 6 is a display diagram illustrating a sample font for a simple display used in the scroll operations of the receiver. Referring to Fig. 2, a block diagram shows a radio selective calling receiver of the present invention. In this drawing, a receiving circuit 1 receives a radio selective call signal and a control circuit 2 detects a call to itself based on the received radio selective call signal and then causes a call reporting circuit 3 to report the call and a display circuit 4 to display a message. A switching circuit 5 is used for a switch operation to scroll a message on a screen of the display circuit 4 under a control of the control circuit 2. Next, operations will be described below. First, when the receiving circuit 1 receives a radio selective call signal, the control circuit 2 determines whether or not the radio selective call signal is directed to itself. If the call signal is directed to itself, the control circuit 2 causes the reporting circuit 3 to report that a call is received. At the same time, the switching circuit 5 causes the display circuit 4 to display a received message under a control of the control circuit 2 by operating it. If it is required to check the connection of the contents on the display screen, the message is scrolled on the screen with the switch operation of the switching circuit 5. Referring to Figs. 3A and 3B, there are shown screen display diagrams for an explanation of the scroll operation described in the above, with a sample display of a message which is not scrolled yet in Fig. 3A. In this embodiment, although a display space for a single character is composed of dots in a 6 by 8 matrix, the dots in the rightmost column and the lowermost row in each display space are left to be blank so as to clarify a boundary between characters adjacent each other and therefore actually a character is displayed in a 5 by 7 dot matrix. Fig. 3B shows a sample display in which the message is scrolled up by two dots. In other words, in this scrolling method, with the characters 123 in the first row being fixed, the characters upper than the blank portion between the first- and second-line characters are scrolled up. In this case, lower two dots of the first-line characters 123 disappear and upper two dots of the third-line characters (789 ) newly appear on the screen. Referring to Figs. 4A and 4B, screen display diagrams show another scroll operation in the present invention. In this embodiment, the characters are scrolled up further by one dot from a display state shown in Fig. 4A and, when the first-line characters are displayed in a 5 by 4 dot matrix in which it becomes impossible to recognize as characters the first-line characters (123 ) gradually disappearing, the first-line characters (123 ) are switched to a simple display as shown in Fig. 4B. If the scrolling is advanced further, the display is switched so that the characters disappear from the lower dots of the first-line simple display. Figs. 5A and 5B show screen display diagrams illustrating still another scroll operation in the present invention. In this embodiment, an explanation will be made for a scroll-down operation of a message. The entire characters shown in Fig. 5A are scrolled down, and new characters (123 ) which appear as a result are initially represented by a simple display and then switched to a normal display when a part of characters appears by a 5 by 5 dot matrix due to the scrolling. The second-line characters (789 ) which disappear due to the scroll-down operation sequentially disappear from the lower dots as shown in Fig. 5B. Referring to Fig. 6, there is shown an example of an LCD font for a simple display used in the scrolling in Figs. 4A and 4B and Figs. 5A and 5B. As set forth hereinabove, according to the present invention, a radio selective calling receiver is configured to have a control circuit for scrolling a message displayed on a screen vertically in units of a dot and then switching characters on the line gradually disappearing due to the scrolling to a simple display which can be recognized as characters when it becomes impossible to recognize them as characters based on a switch operation of a switching circuit, and therefore advantageously the message can be easily read in association with the characters on the line which still remain. Furthermore, according to the invention, a radio selective calling receiver is configured to have the control circuit for scrolling a message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and then, if the message is scrolled up, erasing the characters on the uppermost line gradually from the lower dots without scrolling the characters on the uppermost line or, if the message is scrolled down, displaying the characters from the upper dots of the characters on the uppermost line which appear due to the scrolling, based on a switch operation of the switching circuit, and therefore advantageously a connection between characters, in other words, a connection in the message can be easily checked almost completely even if the message is being scrolled, by means of a scroll operation in which the characters in the uppermost line are erased from the lower dots with leaving the upper dots distinctive in the characters. Still further, according to the invention, a radio selective calling receiver is configured to have the control circuit for scrolling a message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and then, if the message is scrolled down, switching the simple display which can be recognized as characters to the normal display according to the number of the displayed dots on the characters on the uppermost line which appear due to the scrolling, based on a switch operation of the switching circuit, and therefore advantageously the characters on the uppermost line can be easily read at scrolling down. Each feature disclosed in this specification (which term includes the claims) and/or shown in the drawings may be incorporated in the invention independently of other disclosed and/or illustrated features. The text of the abstract filed herewith is repeated here as part of the specification. A radio selective calling receiver which allows anybody to read characters easily which disappear when a message is scrolled up on a screen by means of a simple display. A control circuit 2 is used to scroll the message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and to switch characters on a line which gradually disappear due to the scrolling to a simple display which can be recognized as characters at a point when they cannot be recognized as characters, based on a switch operation of a switching circuit 5.

Claims: Apparatus adapted to display a message on a screen, said apparatus comprising: means adapted to scroll vertically said message on said screen; and means adapted to modify partially displayed lines of characters of the message so that the upper portion of each of said partially displayed line is always displayed on said screen. A radio selective call receiver comprising apparatus according to Claim 1 for displaying a message received by the receiver. A radio selective calling receiver according to Claim 2, comprising: a receiving circuit for receiving a radio selective call signal; said modifying means comprising a control circuit for detecting a call to the receiver based on said received radio selective call signal and outputting signals to a display circuit to display a message on a screen; and said scrolling means comprising a switching circuit for performing a switching operation to scroll vertically said message on said screen. A radio selective calling receiver according to Claim 3, wherein said control circuit is adapted to scroll said message displayed on the screen vertically in units of a dot and then switch characters on the line which is gradually disappearing due to the scrolling to a simple display which can be recognized as characters when it becomes impossible to recognize them as characters, based on a switch operation of said switching circuit. A radio selective calling receiver according to Claim 3, wherein said control circuit is adapted to scroll said message displayed on said screen vertically in units of a dot and then, if the message is scrolled up, erase the characters on the uppermost line gradually from the lower dots without scrolling the characters on the uppermost line or, if the message is scrolled down, display the characters from the upper dots of the characters on the uppermost line which appear due to the scrolling, based on a switch operation of said switching circuit. A radio selective calling receiver according to Claim 3, wherein said control circuit is adapted to scroll said message displayed on said screen vertically in units of a dot and, if the message is scrolled down, initially show a simple display of characters on the uppermost line which appear due to this scrolling and then switch said simple display to a normal display according to the number of the displayed dots, based on a switch operation of said switching circuit.

Inventors: TADA KEN-ICHI, TADA, KEN-ICHI
Applicants: NIPPON ELECTRIC CO, NEC CORPORATION
Application year: 1997
Main classification: G08B5
IPC codes: G09G5, G08B5, H04B1, H04M3, H04Q7, G09G3