Abstract: Research apparatus for performing research on books stored either locally on magnetic or optical media or remotely in an on-line data base. A user of the research apparatus performs research in a project whose state is automatically saved on non-volatile storage, permitting a user to suspend and resume work on the project. The project state includes a list of the books being used by the project and for each book, the last location read and the last query executed on the book. The user selects one book as the current book, and when the selection is made, the research apparatus automatically displays text from the current book which contains the last location read. If there was a query active, the research apparatus automatically re-executes the query. If the current book is stored on an on-line data base, the research apparatus automatically establishes a connection with the on-line data base.

Abstract: A videotex decoder apparatus which, in various aspects, displays a status line to indicate when connect charges are occurring; overlays menus over displayed videotex frames with portions of the displayed frames remaining visible; provides easily called log-on procedures; retrieves remote information frames by user-specified keywords names; prints information frames in selectable different overall sizes; provides selectable different character sets for display; is table-driven; is structured to include a device independent decoder and device dependent drivers; includes a controller which feeds bytes to the decoder for decoding without regard to the protocol-dependent information content of those bytes; and uses an added frame header on stored frames to indicate the videotex protocol for decoding the frames.