Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – Perceptible output or display
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-13
2001-11-27
Sager, Mark (Department: 3713)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
Perceptible output or display
C463S030000, C463S043000, C463S047000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06322447
ABSTRACT:
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. Section 119 from application Ser. No. H10-145620 filed in Japan on May 27, 1998. The contents of application Ser. No. H10-145620 are hereby incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a portable or hand-held color display game machine and a storage medium for the game machine and, more particularly, to a portable color display game machine to which one of a first storage medium storing, for example, tone (gradation) data for monochrome (black-and-white) display, and a second storage medium storing, for example, color data for color display can be selectively attached, and the storage media.
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Portable game machines that use dot-matrix liquid crystal display devices for monochrome display are popular entertainment devices. An example of an 8-bit portable liquid crystal display-equipped game machine is the GAMEBOY® before words which is manufactured and sold by the assignee of this application. GAMEBOY is a registered trademark of Nintendo Co., Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan. The graphics of the GAMEBOY are created from blocks of pixels known as characters. Characters are typically 8 pixels wide and 8 pixels high (or 8 pixels wide and 16 pixels high) and are the smallest addressable unit of screen data for the GAMEBOY. Each pixel can be one of four shades of gray. Characters can be used to represent both background and object data. Backgrounds are groups of characters laid out like tiles to create the environment or background of a game. For backgrounds, a portion of memory corresponding to the screen is used to point to character data to be displayed at a given location. Objects are groups of character data that are used to represent the main game character and other moving objects that overlay the background in a game. Objects are sometimes referred to as “sprites”. Objects also occupy a range of memory pointing to character data, but in addition they have other attributes such as screen location and priority. Thus, characters are displayed in monochrome tones on the screen of the liquid crystal display.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. HEI 7-204349 and counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,108 (the contents of which are incorporated herein) disclose a system in which a conversion device permits the use of a cartridge for one type of game machine with other different types of game machines. For example, the conversion device enables the display of originally monochrome images as color images. In this case, the conversion device is used with a game cartridge for a first type of game machine that displays monochrome images to generate image data for a second type of game machine capable of color display. This conventional technology makes it possible to display color images by providing the conversion device for color conversion processing between the cartridge and the second type of game machine.
However, while representing an improvement which permits the use of game cartridges with different type of game systems, the system described in the '108 patent requires that the conversion device be connected between the second type of game machine and the cartridge in order to color-display monochrome images. Moreover, background images and object images are color-converted by using only one color palette, so that the displayable colors are considerably limited.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a novel portable color display game machine.
It is another object of the invention to provide a portable color display game machine capable of color-displaying game characters regardless of whether the storage medium used therewith is a monochrome game cartridge or a color game cartridge.
It is still another object of the invention to provide portable color display game machine and a storage medium capable of color-displaying a background image and an object image using separate color palettes.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a portable color display game machine includes a game cartridge type determining circuit configured to determine whether a color game cartridge storing color data for a game or a monochrome game cartridge storing monochrome data for a game is attached to the color display game machine. Color display generating circuitry is configured to generate a color game display based on the color data when the color game cartridge is attached to the color display game machine, and to generate a color game display based on the monochrome data when the monochrome game cartridge is attached to the color display game machine.
According to this invention, a portable color display game machine is provided that allows selective use of both the game cartridges storing monochrome data and game cartridges storing color data. Thus, monochrome game cartridges, used for conventional portable monochrome display game machines, can also be used in color display game machines. This makes good use of conventional software resources and expands the types of software that can be used in color display game machines.
In addition, separate color palettes may be set for the individual background characters and the individual object characters, making it possible to display color game images in many colors on the color LCD
16
while using a relatively small amount of palette data.
In addition, the processor of the portable color game machine may be set at one of a plurality of different clock speeds based on, for example, commands from the game program stored on the game cartridge. A higher clock speed improves performance when color games are used. A lower clock speed may be used for the color display of monochrome games to, for example, improve battery life.
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Computer Closet Collection, NEC Turbo Express, printed from wysiwyg://22/http://www.geocities.com/-compcloset/NECTurboExpress.htm on Sep. 28, 2000 (2 pages), copyright, 1997-1999, last modified Jun. 24, 1999.
NEC Turbo Express, pr
Nakashima Takanobu
Okada Satoru
Umezu Ryuji
Hotaling, II John M
Nintendo Co. Ltd.
Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.
Sager Mark
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