A visual display unit with character overstrike capability includes a text store in which text is stored in data stream form. A formatter formats the stored text and loads character codes into a refresh buffer which together with a character generator display the characters on a raster scanned cathode ray tube. Control logic responsive to a backspace character combines the bit patterns corresponding to the characters preceding and succeeding the backspace character in a temporary store and then stores the composite bit pattern in the character generator and a pointer thereto in the refresh buffer. The control logic can be inhibited to allow the individual characters constituting the composite character to be displayed individually for editing purposes.

A character developing apparatus for converting a character string in which outline characters and non-outline characters are mixed into character patterns, and developing the character patterns on a bitmap memory. The character developing apparatus includes a character storage memory for storing the character pattern, a character transfer circuit for selecting the character pattern corresponding to the character code from the character storage memory and transferring the selected character pattern to the bitmap memory. An outline memory stores outline data of the character and a character forming circuit executes outline character extraction processing of consecutively extracting the outline character requiring the character pattern from the character code and character forming processing of consecutively forming the character pattern of the outline character in the character storage memory by use of the outline data in the outline memory. The character forming circuit includes a plurality of pipeline-connected processing circuits each taking charge of divided processes containing the character extraction processing and character forming processing. A time of development on the bitmap memory is thereby reduced.

A layout of five stroke shapes for inputting Chinese characters in a device is disclosed. The layout is Cross-shaped with relative positions of the five strokes being helpful to users knowledgeable in Chinese writing. Further, the layout arrangement is accompanied with a lyric which helps users remember and memorize the locations of the five strokes on the keypad. The relative locations of the five strokes are: Pie at the left of the cross, Dian at the right, Heng at the top, Zhe at the bottom, and Shu at the center. The lyric describes the shapes of the strokes and the relative locations of the strokes in the Cross-shaped configuration. For example, the lyric may be "left slash, right gash, upper over, lower turn with one down in the middle." The lyric may have a tune to become a song and may be burned in a ROM of a device, such as a mobile phone.

A method of changing an alphabetic character to a variant character when entering information or messages in a mobile phone or a game console or the like. The variant character can be a diacritical variation or a tonal variation of the alphabetic character. After an alphabetic character is entered and displayed on a display device, the star key in the keypad can be used to replace the displayed alphabetic character with a desired one of the variants.

Transition-encoded font image information is a form of information flagging all pixel displacement locations upon a scan line of a raster scan image generator, nominally a laser printer, whereat black to white, and white to black, transitions occur during generation of the one scan line of a font image. Transition-encoded information for plural, superimposed, font images may be combined prior to generation of a synthesis image. In this combination of transition-encoded information for generating superimposed font images the flags representing transitions must not be overwritten, there being a limit that a single scan line pixel position must either transit black to white, transit white to black, or maintain the state of the previous pixel. The combining of transition encoded information encodes transitions for these one or ones of addresses (pixels) wherein two flags would otherwise overlap so that the total transitions within the combined font information are preserved. This is accomplished by ripple shifting the position(s) of the transition(s) flag(s) within the second font image information which have identical positional correspondence with transition(s) flag(s) within the first font image information so that the flag(s) are slightly relocated within the combined font image information.