High-speed interactive graphical-display system

The design of a graphical-display system with advanced facilities for assisting the user and minimising computational equirements is described. Pictures of good quality are produced. They require a minimum of store accesses to draw, and can be constructed and modified easily. Facilities include the association of light-pen `hits¿ with display-file and data-base information, the ability to nest subpictures to any level, a special symbol generator, and the ability to modify certain picture parameters. The hardware is modular in construction and makes use of a novel type of `ring¿ highway. It is shown that this is particularly suitable in the graphical-display environment.