Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory – Storage accessing and control – Control technique
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-29
2002-07-23
Lane, Jack A. (Department: 2751)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
Storage accessing and control
Control technique
C711S115000, C711S167000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06425061
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for receiving information services such as teletext services transmitted through broadcast waves or INTERNETS.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, two-way services which use the telephone line as a communication medium have grown in use. For example, “teleshopping” makes purchasing goods within a home and via a telephone line or personal computer telecommunications and exchanging information in the form of character data possible. In the future a “video on demand” service for individually providing selected programs of movies or TV programs to respective receivers in response to receiver's demands is expected.
Further, it is possible to participate in a global scale network, e.g., INTERNET from the home. The INTERNET will perform an Information exchange using an electronic mail (E-mail) or a WWW (world wide web) system at a global scale. The WWW system transfers data written by the HTML (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) using a HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). The transferred data can be graphically displayed by a “WWW browser” such as, e.g., a “Mosaic”. Teleshopping, information services or advertisements and the like are also achieved by way of using the WWW system.
Further, a teletext has been performed for providing information service by way of using TV broadcast waves. A two-way service to transmit data to a broadcasting station by teletext using broadcast wave and the telephone line is about to be performed. Further, an “inter-text” service having a higher interactive ability than the teletext is under consideration for its service.
FIG. 12
is a schematic diagram showing a two-way service using a server.
The first station A and the second station B exchanges data between each other via the telephone line C. The first station A receives a TV broadcast wave by an antenna
8
and derives information from the received TV broadcast wave.
The first station A includes an information processing terminal devise
1
, an analog modern
2
, and a video signal processing block
3
. The second station B is comprised of a modern
4
, a server
5
which is a type of the information processor an auxiliary memory
6
, and a network interface
7
.
The server
5
is a type of computer for performing a proper processing in response to instructions from the information processing block
1
. The server
5
is connected to a wide area network, e.g., so called INTERNET via the network interface. The INTERNET is a global scale network and is connected to an unlimited number of computers. The server
5
is able to obtain information held in other computers via the INTERNET.
Now data communication between the first station A and the second station B will be explained.
The first station A has a conventional arrangement for performing communications using personal computers in general homes. The second station B shows the most basic conceptual arrangement of the so called INTERNET provider.
Generally, the first station A obtains an account of accessing the server
5
and a phone number of the second station B in order to communicate with the second station B.
FIG. 13
illustrates a case in which the first station A is already subscripting with the second station B. First, the first station A requests a call connection through a telephone line C to the second station B (see
191
in FIG.
13
). Thus the connection is established between modem
2
and modem
4
.
Station A then establishes a connection between the information processing block I and the server
5
through software. Such a connection in software is made by using a data link layer of PPP (see
192
in FIG.
13
), and a transport layer and network layer of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/INTERNET Protocol) (see
193
,
194
in FIG.
13
). Here the PPP Is described In “The point-to-point Protocol (PPP), W. Simpson et al. Network Working Group, RFC 1661.
If the connection between the first station A and the second station B is established, the first station A can obtain information available through, for example, the WWW system. The protocol for realizing the WWW system is given by the http (see
195
in
FIG. 13
) representing a session layer of an OSI reference model, a presentation layer and an application layer. The HTTP is described in “Hypertext Transfer Protocol CHTTP/1.O, T. Berner-Lee et al, HTTP Working Group, INTERNET-DRAFT, Sep. 4, 1995”.
Now another information service using the ground wave broadcasting will be explained. In the information service using the ground wave TV broadcasting, data is carried on a part of the vertical sync signal of the video signal.
FIG. 14
is a magnified view of the vertical sync signal of the video signal. Line numbers and their waveforms are shown in detail in FIG.
14
. The lines “#
10
” through “#
20
” are vertical blanking periods and are hidden outside the TV screen. Lines “#
17
” through “#
20
” are used for operations in the broadcasting station. Lines “#
14
” through “#
16
” are assigned for transmissions of character data or graphical data referred to as teletext. Further lines “#
10
” through “#
13
” are assigned for a future use of services at a higher interactive ability than the current teletext.
Next, a user operation that can be performed on the information processing block I will be explained.
FIG. 15
is a diagram showing a conventional arrangement of the information processing block
1
and the video signal processing block
3
. As shown in
FIG. 15
, the information processing block
1
has an information processor
11
, a display
12
, an auxiliary memory
13
and an input device
14
. The display
12
, the auxiliary memory
13
and the input device
14
are connected to the information processor
11
. And, the modern
2
is also connected to the information processor
11
.
The information processor
11
performs basic control by executing an OS (operating system) stored in the auxiliary memory
13
. The user accesses a “WWW Browser”, such as for example a “Mosaic” developed by the University of Illinois in U.S., on the input device
14
. The Information processor
11
reads out the “Browser” application stored in the auxiliary memory
13
and displays it on the display
12
. Next, the user inputs a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that represents an address for identifying information available through the INTERNET. Upon inputting the URL, the user can obtain desired information over the INTERNET. The information processor
11
requests the URL address information assigned to the server
5
to be read out. Then, the server
5
retrieves the assigned URL address Information from the network and returns it to the information processor
11
.
The information returned from the server
5
is a hyper link format, that is HTML (as exemplarily discussed in “Hyper Text Markup Language CHTML/2.O”, T. Berners-Lee, or HTML Working Group INTERNET-DRAFT, Aug. 8, 1995) format. The information in HTML format is arranged by the Mosaic operating on the information terminal unit
11
and displayed on the display
12
as graphical data.
On the other hand, the video signal processing block
3
has a sync signal separator
31
, a waveform equalizer
32
and a data read-out error corrector
33
.
The video signal obtained from an antenna
8
is supplied to both the sync signal separator
31
and the waveform equalizer
32
. The sync signal separator
31
performs the sync separation from the video signal and generates a timing signal to decide the line numbers. The waveform equalizer
32
eliminates the ghost from the video signal, and then extracts the data carried on the vertical sync period, as shown in
FIG. 14
, under the timing control of the timing signal generated in the sync signal separator
31
. The data read-out error corrector
33
corrects the errors of the data extracted in the waveform equalizer
32
then applies the data to the information processor
11
. When the user is selecting the teletext, the information processor
11
generates a picture correspo
Kaise Tetsuya
Sugiyama Toru
Yasuki Seijiro
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
Lane Jack A.
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