Electronic digital information handling system with character recognition for controlling information flow

Claim 1

IN A COMPUTER FOR PERFORMING DESIRED OPERATIONS ON ONE OR MORE OPERANDS EACH HAVING ONE OR MORE CHARACTERS REPRESENTED BY CODED ELECTRICAL SIGNALS, SAID COMPUTER COMPRISING A GENERATOR OF REPEATED CYCLES OF TIMING PULSES, A MEMORY, AN ARITHMETIC UNIT, AN INPUT, AN OUTPUT, AND PROGRAM CONTROL CIRCUITS CONTROLLING THE FLOW OF INFORMATION AMONG SAID GENERATOR, SAID MEMORY, SAID UNIT, SAID INPUT, AND SAID OUTPUT, AN IMPROVEMENT IN SAID PROGRAM CONTROL CIRCUITS COMPRISING RECOGNITION CIRCUITS RESPONSIVE TO CERTAIN CHARACTERS, OPERATION LEVEL CIRCUITS FOR SELECTING AT LEAST ONE OPERATION LEVEL IN RESPONSE TO THE OPERATION TO BE PERFORMED, AND STATUS LEVEL CIRCUITS FOR SELECTING A SEQUENCE OF STATUS LEVELS RESPONSIVE JOINTLY TO THE OTHER OF SAID CIRCUITS OF SAID IMPROVEMENT AND TO SAID GENERATOR, SAID STATUS LEVEL CIRCUITS COMPRISING STATUS LEVEL SELECTION MEANS HAVING A SET OF TERMINALS ONE CORRESPONDING TO EACH SAID STATUS LEVELS, AND ONE OR MORE GATES RESPONSIVE JOINTLY TO SAID OTHER OF SAID PROGRAM CONTROL CIRCUITS AND TO SAID GENERATOR, SAID