專利 US4481603 - File processing method using expanding display windows for selected records ...

United States Patent tm Patent Number: 4,481,603

McCaskill et al. [45] Date of Patent: Nov. 6, 1984

[54] FILE PROCESSING METHOD USING EXPANDING DISPLAY WINDOWS FOR SELECTED RECORDS AND TEXT FIELDS

[75] Inventors: Rex A. McCaskill; John W. Mclnroy;

Paul D. Waldo, all of Austin, Tex.

[73] Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.

[21] Appl. No.: 264,625

[22] Filed: May 18, 1981

[51] Int. CI.3 G06F 3/14; G06F 7/22

[52] U.S. CI 364/900; 340/721;

340/799; 400/63; 400/83 [58] Field of Search ... 364/200 MS File, 900 MS File, 364/300; 400/63, 83; 340/721, 711, 799

[56] References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

3,566,361 2/1971 Lavertu et al. .

3,757,037 9/1973 Bialek 340/712

3,872,460 3/1975 Fredrickson et al 340/711

4,057,849 11/1977 Ying et al 364/200

4,129,858 12/1978 Hara .

4,193,112 3/1980 Gilbert et al 364/200

4,197,590 4/1980 Sukonick et al 364/900

4,204,206 5/1980 Bakula et al 340/721

4,298,957 11/1981 Duvall et al 364/900

4,329,684 5/1982 Monteath et al 340/707

4,417,239 11/1983 Demke et al 340/709

4,425,629 1/1984 Cason et al 364/900

FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

WO82/00726 3/1982 PCX Int'l. Appl 340/721

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Windowed Editor, Datamation (Feb. 1982), p. 198. The Electric Blackboard, Datamation (Feb. 1982), Advertisement.

W. D. Elliot et al., Computer Assisted Tracing of Text

An information processing system (10) has a terminal (12) which functions with a diskette storage (14). The terminal (12) includes a display screen (16) and keyboard (18) wherein an operator enters alphanumeric characters and predefined commands. A file of information is stored on the diskette storage (14). The file is made up of a plurality of records. Each of the records comprises a plurality of fields. The fields include character fields, arithmetic fields and text fields. The text fields include alphanumeric, punctuation and control characters, the character fields include alphanumeric and punctuation characters and exclude control characters and the arithmetic fields include numeric characters and exclude control characters. By inputting commands to the keyboard (18) the operator reads a record from storage (14) and displays it on the screen (16). The content of the fields in the record are displayed on the screen (16) except for the text fields. For each text field there is displayed an asterisk (60). The operator selects a text field by positioning a cursor (62) beneath the corresponding asterisk and then inputting a down cursor command. In response to the down cursor command the terminal (12) opens a text window on the screen (16) and displays the corresponding text field on the lower portion (16b) of the screen (16). The operator is then free to edit the text field. After completion of the editing the operator enters a command to incorporate the edited text field with the selected record. The record with the edited text field can then be returned to the file in the storage (14).

8 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures

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I Rec_lD | Lost_Nome| Firsl_Nome| MI I School I Degree I GPA I Comments I

his applicant performed so poorly in school that he did not
graduate from high school, let alone attend college. He is
a free-lance inventor who proposes radical alternatives to
current technology in the field of illumination.
He would be a high risk applicant.

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