Abstract: A character display system is disclosed which provides displays of characters of variable size. A diddle raster scanning technique is used to display each character in its entirely before proceeding with the display of the next character. The size of the character is increased by increasing the size of the diddle raster scanned. In order to improve the appearance of larger point size characters, each character stroke is repeated a number of times N, where N increases with increasing point size.A circuit (112) provides an indication of the size of the character to be displayed. This indication is used to address a ROM (146) which contains control information (D1-D5) therein. A portion (D2, ) D3, D5) of this information controls the size of the diddle raster scanned, and another portion (D1) provides the number N indicating the number of times each character stroke is to be repeated. A video generator (114) generates a video signal on the basis of this number N and various character codes supplied to it.

Abstract: A circuit in a video layout system permits the operator to view any portion of text material whose width exceeds that of a display screen of a CRT. The circuit has an operator controllable, variable reference signal generator which provides a signal whose amplitude with respect to an initial amplitude is related to the desired direction and degree of scrolling. This reference signal is subtracted from the horizontal deflection ramp signal to produce an offset ramp signal. A comparator compares the ramp and reference signals and blanks the electron beam until the ramp exceeds the reference to prevent text information from being displayed on the parameter section of the display screen.