Character generation

Abstract

The main scope of having a complex system run efficiently is determined by the ease with which one can see what is happening at every stage within the system. The system can be a busy airport, or a computer. The best interface one can achieve between any machine and man is through visual contact. Thus one can find lights going on and off to indicate dangers, alarm and so on. The best visual contact takes place when the system actually 'tells' the user what is happening. Hence, in large airports, displays announce departures and arrivals in detail. In computers, the answer will be shown on a screen in everyday language. The difficulty associated with the characters of any language is that they are so different in shape that it is impossible to represent them at all without any degree of complexity. Thus, one must compromise, and accept a system where some characters are not as acceptable to the eye as if they are printed. This usually occurs with characters which have diagonals, as seen later. The aim of this project has been to set up a system with a capability of a number of characters. The number of characters chosen was small for any commercial system, however, expansion is easily achieved since the main technical difficulties are dealt with in this project.