Character recognition system

Claim 1

IN A CHARACTER RECOGNITION SYSTEM, THE COMBINATION COMPRISING PARALLEL SCANNING MEANS FOR SCANNING EACH CHARACTER TO BE RECOGNIZED IN A PLURALITY OF ADJACENT AND CONCURRENT SCANS, ENCODING MEANS CONNECTED TO SAID SCANNING MEANS FOR DEVELOPING A PLURALITY OF RECOGNITION CRITERIA FROM THE SCANNING INFORMATION, INCLUDING THE NUMBER OF CHARACTER AREAS, AND THE LENGTH OF CHARACTER AREAS AND NON-CHARACTER AREAS, STORAGE MEANS CONNECTED TO SAID ENCODING MEANS FOR STORING THE VARIOUS RECOGNITION CRITERIA DURING EACH SCAN, AND A PLURALITY OF SEQUENCE ANALYZING CIRCUIT MEANS, ONE FOR EACH CHARACTER TO BE RECOGNIZED, AND READOUT CONTROL MEANS FOR SEQUENTIALLY CONNECTING SAID STORAGE MEANS TO SAID SEQUENCE ANALYZING CIRCUIT MEANS, SAID SEQUENCE ANALYZING CIRCUIT MEANS EACH COMPRISING A PLURALITY OF CASCADE CONNECTED BISTABLE ELEMENTS ARRANGED SO THAT THE ELEMENTS ARE SUCCESSIVELY RENDERED EFFECTIVE BY A PREDETERMINED SEQUENCE OF SAID RECOGNITION CRITERIA SUPPLIED THERETO FROM SAID STORAGE MEANS.