Abstract: A document handling terminal is disclosed having a read unit, a printer, an inscriber and an endorser unit, a printer, an inscriber and an endorser unit. A microprocessor in the terminal controls the operation of the various input output units by means of an operation control table loaded into said microprocessor from a host computer. A plurality of instructions in the table are executed in a sequence without branches or jumps by comparing a condition field in each instruction to information stored in a condition register. If the comparison indicates equal, the operation code of the instruction is executed, otherwise not. The execution of an instruction controls data transfer within a buffer store, between the buffer store and input output registers, the setting of operation indicators and changing of data in the condition register. The input output units are selectively operated according to the state of the operation indicators asynchronous to execution of the instructions.

Abstract: Hierarchical three-level computer system for receiving input messages from signal sources (23) and for conditionally activating output devices (26) according to input messages; the system comprising a host computer (15), a terminal computer (27) and a number of micro computers (22). The central computer enters condition tables into specific storage modules (2A-2E) within the terminal computer. These tables can be displayed on the terminal computer screen (10) and may be updated from the terminal computer keyboard (8). The micro computer receives input signals from a signal source (22) and composes input messages, which are transferred to the terminal computer. The terminal computer makes a comparison between input messages and condition table data and selectively activates the output devices (26).A specific up and down counting apparatus within the micro computer enables a simultaneous signal detection and data processing operation.

Abstract: An optical character recognition system stores image data as a compressed run-length code. Preprocessing of characters for segmentation and registration is performed on the compressed data by means of tables created by a microprocessor. Only the image data required for recognition is expanded for the recognition process.

Abstract: A device for optical character reading comprising an optical reading unit, a video detector, a segmenting unit, a video buffer, a recognition unit and a controlling micro computer. The computer controls the setting of the threshold value in the video detector, and calculates by means of profile data received from the segmenting unit coordinates for a starting point for recognizing a character in the recognition unit. A comparator in the recognition unit compares bit by bit mask bits from a read only storage with corresponding data bits from the video buffer and stores the result into a status register. A recognized character is transferred from the read only storage to a character register, the computer is interrupted and a character is transferred from the recognition unit to the computer.The video detector comprises selectively connectable and computer controlled attenuation resistors for setting up a threshold signal curve simulating the form for the video signal curve.

Abstract: This specification describes apparatus for reading and decoding data encoded in terms of the spacing between adjacent code bars on a document. The apparatus contains reading means for producing an electrical pulse for each bar recorded on the document as the bar passes the reading element. A counter is used to measure the time between each two pulses and the resultant counts are stored in a memory in the order in which the pulses were produced by the reading means. A microprocessor then compares this stored data with microcoded data representative of properly coded digits. If there is a compare the stored data is shifted out of the memory and into a computer for use. However if there is a no-compare the microprocessor alters the data on the assumption that a particular type of error has occurred and again compares the modified data with the microcoded data. If this results in a compare the modified data is again read out and into the using computer.