Abstract: A stroke expansion technique for use in controlling incremental stroke displays. The technique results in a substantial reduction of the stroke memory required for storage of the stroke sequences of an alphanumeric character set. Logic circuitry is operable to recognize a stroke of the same video state (on or off) in the reverse direction of the immediately preceding stroke to cause a predetermined number of additional strokes identical to the immediately preceding stroke to be generated instead of utilizing the reverse stroke to return the beam to its position immediately previous to execution of the preceding stroke.