Electron beam type computer output on microfilm printer

Claim 2

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member has a thin conductive layer formed over at least a part of the surface of bulk supporting member exposed to the electron beam and extending over at least part of the thin window portion whereby build-up of a substantial charge on the window can be minimized.

Claim 3

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the electron beam apparatus is of the type including deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam along at least one axis of movement and said window portion comprises an elongated thin slit having its long axis extending in the direction of deflection of the electron beam. 5 An electron beam apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said window portion comprises an elongated thin slit having a width which is more narrow than the largest dimension of the cross section of an elongated electron beam produced by the electron beam apparatus.

Claim 4

An electron beam apparatus to claim 1, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting meMber is silicon and the thin window portion is comprised by a thin layer of silicon dioxide previously formed to a desired thickness on the surface of the bulk supporting silicon member by controlled chemical reaction prior to etching the window therein and wherein the thin slit window portion as a width on the order of 5-75 microns and a thickness on the order of 500-2,000 angstrom units.

Claim 5

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the electron beam apparatus further includes additional micro deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam along two transverse axes of movement with respect to a character wide thin slit window portion for writing a line of alphanumeric characters, and beam blanking means for blanking the electron beam at appropriate points along the line of characters to provide for separation and formatting of the written characters.

Claim 6

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 4, wherein an array of characters masks having openings there in forming alphanumeric characters are arranged along the longitudinal dimension of the elongated thin slit window portion and the deflecting means serves to deflect the electron beam to a selected character on one of the character masks, and the electron beam apparatus further includes micro deflection means disposed intermediate the array of character masks and the first mentioned deflecting means for focusing and deflecting a desired alphanumeric character-shaped electron beam produced by passage of the electron beam through a selected character opening on one of the character masks to cause the same to be directed through the thin window portion and a desired point along its length.

Claim 7

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 4, wherein an extremely fine slit window portion is provided having a width on the order of the diameter of the electron beam whereby partial character recording can be achieved during each scan of the electron beam across the longitudinal direction of the window portion accompanied with appropriate beam blanking at selected points along the path of travel thereof to provide character spacing and formatting and repetitive scans of the electron beam are required for complete character recording.

Claim 8

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member is silicon and the thin window portion is comprised by a thin layer of silicon dioxide previously formed on the surface of the bulk supporting silicon member prior to etching the window therein and the elongated thin slit window portion has a longitudinal dimension on the order of the length of a line of recorded characters and a thin width portion on the order of 5 microns with the thickness of the window portion being on the order of 500-2,000 angstrom units.

Claim 9

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 9, further including means for blanking the beam of electrons at appropriate points along the path of travel thereof during the scanning of the beam in the longitudinal direction of the thin slit window portion.

Claim 10

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 11, wherein said electron beam blanking means comprises means for producing suitable on-off blanking signals supplied to the control grid of the electron beam apparatus.

Claim 11

An electron beam apparatus according to claim 11, wherein said electron beam blanking means comprises deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam transversely to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion so that the sides of the supporting bulk member intercept and blank the beam at points where beam blanking is desired.

Claim 12

An electron beam COM printer system including an electron beam apparatus of the type set forth in claim 1, an electron sensitive microfilm recording medium, transport means for supporting the microfilm recording medium immediately adjacent the thin window portion of the electron beam recording apparatus for recording data thereon, printer cOntrol circuit means coupled to said electron beam writing apparatus and the transport means for controlling the operation thereof, and character generator circuit means controlled by the printer control circuit means and coupled to the electron beam writing apparatus for controlling the operation thereof in conjunction with the printer control circuit means, said printer control circuit means and said character generator circuit means being controlled from the output of a computer system with which the COM printer is used as a print-out device.

Claim 13

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 14, further including buffer memory means intercoupled with the printer control circuit means and the character generator means for receiving a predetermined number of lines of data to be printed from a computer system central processing unit plus control data for directing operation of the printer control circuit means, said buffer memory means serving to store temporarily the predetermined number of lines of data while each line of data is being printed out by the COM printer thereby freeing the computer system central processing unit for further operations during printing of the stored lines of data.

Claim 14

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 15, wherein the electron beam recording apparatus is of the type including deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam along at least one axis of movement and the window portion comprises an elongated thin slit having its long axis extending in the direction of deflection of the electron beam, said transport means operates to move the microfilm recording medium in a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window whereby successive lines of data can be recorded raster fashion, said printer control circuit means is coupled to and controls operation of the deflecting means to cause tracing of the electron beam along the longitudinal dimension of the elongated thin slit window portion, and the character generator circuit means controls beam blanking and character formatting.

Claim 15

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 16, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member is silicon and the thin window portion is comprised by a thin layer of silicon dioxide previously formed on the surface of the bulk supporting silicon member by chemical reaction prior to etching the window therein and wherein the thin slit window portion has a length on the order of one line of recorded alphanumeric characters on microfilm, a width on the order of 75 microns and a thickness on the order of 1,000-5,000 angstrom units.

Claim 16

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 17, further including means enclosing the Lenard window portion of the electron beam apparatus and the microfilm disposed immediately adjacent the Lenard window portion in an enclosed space maintained at a reduced pressure relative to the surrounding ambient atmosphere.

Claim 17

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 16, wherein said window portion comprises an elongated thin slit having its longest dimension approximating the length of a line of microfilm recorded alphanumeric characters and having the thin dimension thereof approximating the height of an individual alphanumeric character recorded on microfilm, and wherein the electron beam recording apparatus further includes additional micro deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam along two transverse axes of movement with respect to the character wide elongated thin slit window portion for writing a line of alphanumeric characters, and beam blanking means for blanking the electron beam at appropriate points along the line of characters to provide for separation and formatting of the written line of characters, said character generator circuit means controlling operation of both said additional micro deflecting means and said beam blanking means.

Claim 18

An electron beam COM printer sysTem according to claim 19, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member is silicon and the thin window portion is comprised by a thin layer of silicon dioxide previously formed on the surface of the bulk supporting member by chemical reaction prior to etching the window therein and wherein the thin slit window portion has a width on the order of 75 microns and a thickness on the order of 1,000-5,000 angstom units.

Claim 19

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 16, wherein an array of character masks having openings therein forming alphanumeric characters are arranged along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion and the deflecting means serves to deflect the electron beam to a selected character on one of the character masks, and said electron beam recording apparatus further including micro deflection means disposed intermediate the array of character masks and the first mentioned deflecting means for focusing and deflecting a desired alphanumeric character-shaped electron beam produced by passage of the electron beam through a selected character opening on one of the character masks to cause the same to be directed through the thin window portion at a desired point along its length and thereby record an electron image of the selected character at a desired point on the microfilm recording medium disposed under the thin window portion.

Claim 20

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 16, wherein an extremely fine elongated slit window portion is provided having a width on the order of the diameter of the electron beam and means are provided for repetitively scanning the electron beam in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the elongated window portion together with means for blanking the beam of electrons at appropriate points along the path of travel thereof whereby partial character recording is achieved during each scan of the electron beam, and the transport means moves the microfilm recording medium transverse to the longitudinal dimension of the elongated fine slit window portion intermediate each scan whereby during successive scans of the electron beam raster recording of lines of complete alphanumeric characters is achieved by the accumulation of partial character recordings accomplished during each respective scan of the electronic beam.

Claim 21

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 22 wherein the thin window portion is formed by chemical reaction with the bulk supporting member and the differentially etched bulk supporting member and thin window portion of the electron beam recording apparatus are from the class of materials consisting essentially of silicon-silicon dioxide (Si-SiO2); aluminum-aluminum oxide (Al-Al2O3); tantalum-tantalum oxide (Ta-TaO); titanium-titanium oxide (Ti-TiO); silicon-silicon nitride (Si-SiN); and silicon-silicon carbide (Si-SiC); silicon-aluminium oxide (Si-Al2O3).

Claim 22

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 22 wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member comprising a part of the electron beam recording apparatus is silicon and the thin window portion thereof is comprised by a thin layer of silicon dioxide previously formed to a desired thickness on the surface of the bulk supporting silicon member by chemical reaction prior to etching the window therein and the elongated thin slit window portion has a longitudinal dimension on the order of the length of a line of recorded characters and a width on the order of 5 microns with the thickness of the window portion being on the order of 500-2,000 angstrom units.

Claim 23

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 24, wherein the means for blanking the beam of electrons at appropriate points during each individual scan thereof comprises on-off blanking signals supplied to the control grid of the electron beam recording apparatus from the characTer generator circuit means.

Claim 24

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 24, wherein the means for blanking the beam of electrons at appropriate points during each individual scan thereof comprises deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam transversely to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion so that the sides of the supporting bulk member intercept and blank the beam at points where beam blanking is desired.

Claim 25

An electron beam COM printer system including in combination an electron beam recording apparatus comprising an evacuated housing having a source of electrons disposed therein and controlled by a control grid, means for directing the electrons in a beam toward one end of the housing, a Lenard window secured to the housing against which the electrons are directed, said Lenard window being fabricated from a differentially etched bulk supporting member secured to the wall of the evacuated housing and having an extremely thin window portion in the form of an elongated thin slit through which the electron beam is directed to permit egress of the electron beam out of the evacuated housing, said elongated slit thin window portion consisting of a material formed on but different than the bulk supporting member and not susceptible to the etchant employed to form the window in the bulk supporting member, deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion, an electron sensitive microfilm tape recording medium, tape transport means for disposing the microfilm tape recording medium immediately adjacent the elongated slit window portion of the electron beam recording apparatus and for transporting the tape past the window portion in a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion, developing means for developing electron images recorded on the microfilm tape recording medium, printer control circuit means coupled to the deflecting means for said electron beam recording apparatus, to said tape transport means and to said developing means for controlling the operation thereof, and character generator circuit means controlled by the printer control circuit means and coupled to the control grid for the electron source of the electron beam recording apparatus for controlling operation of the electron beam recording apparatus in conjunction with the printer control circuit means whereby the electron beam is caused repetitively to scan along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion and is blanked at appropriate points in accordance with characters to be recorded, said printer control circuit means and said character generator circuit means being controlled from the output of an electronic computer system with which the COM printer is used as a print-out device.

Claim 26

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 27, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member and thin window portion are from the class of materials consisting essentially of silicon-silicon dioxide (Si-SiO2); aluminum-aluminum oxide (Al-Al2O3); tantalum-tantalum oxide (Ta-TaO); and titanium-titanium oxide (Ti-TiO); silicon-silicon nitride (Si-SiN); silicon-silicon carbide (Si-SiC); and silicon-aluminium oxide (Si-Al2O3).

Claim 27

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 27, wherein an extremely fine slit window portion is provided having a width on the order of the diameter of the electron beam whereby partial character recording is achieved during each scanning of the electron beam across the longitudinal direction of the window portion accompanied with appropriate beam blanking at selected points along the path of travel thereof to provide character spacing and formatting, and the transport means moves the microfilm recording medium transverse to the longitudinal dimension of the elongated thin slit window portion intermediate each scan whereby during successive scans of the electron beam raster recording of lines of complete alphanumeric characters is achieved by the accumulation of partial character recordings accomplished during each respective scan of the electron beam.

Claim 28

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 27, further including buffer memory means intercoupled with the printer control circuit means and the character generator means for receiving a predetermined number of lines of data to be printed from a computer system central processing unit plus control instructions for directing operations of the printer control circuit means, said buffer memory means serving to store temporarily the predetermined number of lines of data plus control instructions while it is being printed out by the COM printer device thereby freeing the computer system central processing unit for further operations during printing of the stored lines of data.

Claim 29

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 30, wherein each character recorded on the microfilm tape recording medium is comprised of a matrix of horizontal coextending and vertical transversely placed dots measured with respect to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window and with the equivalent of a predetermined number of dot spacings between characters in each line and between each line of characters, the placement of a dot in the formation of a character in a line of characters and the spacing thereof with respect to other dots comprising the character and line of characters being controlled by appropriate manipulation of the beam deflection means and beam blanking means of the electron beam recording apparatus.

Claim 30

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 31, wherein the printer control circuit means comprises dot clock pulse and control circuit means coupled to and responsive to the buffer memory means for generating the basic dot clock pulse signal, horizontal dot position-in-a-character counter means responsive to the dot clock pulse and control circuit means, horizontal characters-in-a-line counter means responsive to the horizontal dot position-in-a-character counter means and coupled to and controlling a ramp generator means for driving the deflection means for deflecting the electron beam horizontally along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion, means for coupling the output from said characters-in-a-line counter means back to the input of the dot clock pulse and control circuit means for inhibiting operation of said dot clock pulse and control circuit means during the retrace portion of the beam deflection means, vertical line-in-a-page counter means coupled to the output from said characters-in-a-line counter means and controlling said tape transport and developing means, vertical-dot-position-in-a-character counter means responsive to the output from the characters-in-a-line counter means, said character generator means comprising a read only memory matrix responsive to the buffer memory means and the output of the vertical-dot-position-in-a-character counter means and digital multiplexing circuit means supplied with said dot clock pulses and controlled by read only memory matrix for controlling the grid driving amplifier supplying the control grid of the electron beam recording apparatus for intensifying the electron beam at points where dots are to be recorded.

Claim 31

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 32, wherein an extremely fine elongated slit window portion is provided having a width on the order of the diameter of the electron beam whereby partial character recording is achieved during each individual scan and recording of a complete character is accomplished by a series of successive scans of the electron beam across the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window portion accompanied with appropriate intensification of the electron beam at selected points as determined by the read onlY memory along the path of travel of the electron beam to provide dot spacing and formatting of the characters being printed.

Claim 32

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 33, wherein the differentially etched bulk supporting member is silicon and the thin window portion is comprised by a thin layer of silicon dioxide previously formed to a desired thickness on the surface of the bulk supporting silicon member by chemical reaction prior to etching the window therein and the elongated thin slit window portion has a longitudinal dimension corresponding to the length of a line of 132 recorded alphanumeric characters plus appropriate spacing between characters and a width on the order of 5 microns with the thickness of the window portion being on the order of 500-2,000 angstrom units.

Claim 33

An electron beam COM printer system including in combination an electron beam recording apparatus comprising an evacuated housing having a source of electrons disposed therein and controlled by a control grid, means for directing the electrons in a beam toward one end of the housing, a target window secured to the housing against which the electrons are directed, said target window being capable of emanating radiation exterior of said housing through an extremely thin window portion in the form of an elongated thin slit through which radiation is directed to permit egress out of the evacuated housing, said target windows comprising a bulk supporting portion having a window etched therein and secured to said housing and said thin window portion being formed from a material different from the bulk supporting portion and not susceptible to the etchant employed to form the window in the bulk supporting portion, deflecting means for deflecting the electron beam along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit target window, a microfilm tape recording medium, tape transport means for disposing the microfilm tape recording medium immediately adjacent the elongated slit target window of the electron beam recording apparatus and for transporting the tape past the window in a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit target window developing means for developing images recorded on the microfilm tape recording medium, printer control circuit means coupled to the deflecting means for said electron beam recording apparatus, to said tape transport means and to said developing means for controlling the operation thereof, and character generator circuit means controlled by the printer control circuit means and coupled to the control grid for the electron source of the electron beam recording appartus for controlling operation of the electron beam recording apparatus in conjunction with the printer control circuit means whereby the electron beam is caused repetitively to scan along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit target window and is blanked at appropriate points in accordance with characters to be recorded, said printer control circuit means and said character generator circuit means being controlled from the output of an electronic computer system with which the COM printer is used as a print-out device.

Claim 34

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 35, further including buffer memory means intercoupled with the printer control circuit means and the character generator means for receiving a predetermined number of lines of data to be printed from a computer system central processing unit plus control instructions for directing operation of the printer control circuit means, said buffer memory means serving to store temporarily the predetermined number of lines of data while it is being printed out by the COM printer device thereby freeing the computer system central processing unit for further operations during printing of the stored lines of data.

Claim 35

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 36, wherein each character recorded on the microfilm tape recording medium is comprised Of a matrix of horizontal dots coextensive with the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window and vertical dots disposed transverse to the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit window with the equivalent of a predetermined number of dot spacings between characters and each line of characters, the placement of a dot in the formation of a character in a line of characters and the spacing thereof with respect to other dots comprising the character and line of characters being controlled by appropriate manipulation of the beam deflection means and beam blanking means for the electron beam recording apparatus.

Claim 36

An electron beam COM printer system according to claim 37, wherein the printer control circuit means comprises dot clock pulse and control circuit means coupled to and responsive to the buffer memory means for generating the basic dot clock pulse signal, horizontal dot position-in-a-character counter means responsive to the dot clock pulse and control circuit means, horizontal characters-in-a-line counter means responsive to the horizontal dot position-in-a-character counter means and coupled to and controlling a ramp generator means for driving the deflection means for deflecting the electron beam horizontally along the longitudinal axis of the elongated thin slit target window, means for coupling the output from said characters-in-a-line counter means back to the input of the dot clock pulse and control circuit means for inhibiting operation of said dot clock pulse and control circuit means during the retrace portion of the beam deflection means, vertical line-in-a-page counter means coupled to the output from said characters-in-a-line counter means and controlling said tape transport and developing means, vertical dot-position-in-a-character counter means responsive to the output from the characters-in-a-line counter means, said character generator means comprising a read only memory matrix responsive to the buffer memory means and the output of the vertical dot position-in-a-character counter means, and digital multiplexing circuit means supplied with said dot clock pulses and controlled by said read only memory matrix for controlling the grid driving amplifier supplying the control grid of the electron beam recording apparatus for intensifying the electron beam at points where dots are to be recorded.