DIYbanter - View Single Post - Omndiagonal Serialization and Monitor Design

wrote:
Hell, alt.math, sci.math, and sci.electronic.design.

I have put my machine tool interests on the back burner and am pursuing
a monitor, video, and data format I think I may have come up with
originally, although some of it is known.

What I want to do is build some wave files and display them on my Tek
541 oscilloscope to start with.. They will have x and y values between
the extremes of plus and minus 15 bits (+- 32,767) at CD audio rate
(44.1 kss) on the left and right audio channels. I will use Mathcad to
compute the values to be converted from digital to analog audio.

x and y have some constraints. The will either be coprime or have a
sole comon factor of 2. My method of omnidiagonally serializing the
elements of the x by y bitmap, which I repeat may not be original, is
to start at a corner, or adjacent a corner, choosing by whether x and y
are coprime or have that common factor of 2, respectively, then to
trace the diagonal to a side, move along the side one increment, and
"reflect" the trace in that way.

While there are no upper bonds on x and y other than the 16 bits
available in most D/A converters, the atomic scan modes and bitmaps are
specific: they are 3x5 and 4x6. 3x5 is the atomic open serialization,
and 4x6 the atomic closed serilization. The open serilization begins
and ends in a diagonally opposite corners. The closed serialization
forms a continuous loop, and closed serilizations seem suitable for a
monitor design. So you can see that unlike conventional rasters, the
frequencies are in proportion to the aspect ratio, given square pixels.

I believe that you are talking about raster-per-character way of making
a video display.

If you open a Signetics or TI logic databook from the early 70's I
believe you will find pre-programmed ROM's that let you do this, along
with some sample circuits.

I think some Tek scopes (the ones that can put numbers up on the CRT's
along with waveforms) used this techniquie through at least the 80's
(maybe early 90's).

This was also used in the famous Tek storage scope computer terminals
of the early 70's, like the 4010 and 4014, although not as a continuous
raster (because of course it was a storage scope!). As each character
was drawn you saw a square blink as the beam swept across in the
character raster and was modulated to store the character on the
screen.

I have given disclosure in the past so this method is not patentable.

It probably was patented in the 60's (if at all). Let me dig out my
late 60's/early 70's books on raster display generators and see if I
can find some names/brands/part numbers/patents for you.

I always liked the vector character generators myself.

Tim.