An Electronic Index for Dictionaries andTelephone GuidesThis invention relates to an electronic index to be used with dictionaries and telephone guides to give the page number of a word or a name searched for.
Dictionaries, language dictionaries, telephone guides, and the like, are alphabetically arranged references. To get the meaning of a word from a dictionary or to get a name from a telephone guide requires one to be well acquainted with the alphabetic order and to repeat checking this order three or four times during the search for one word or one name. This checking procedure is hard on most people especially young students and those who need to use the dictionary or the telephone guide quite often such as language scholars, secretaries, translators, ~ . . . . etc.
According to the present invention, an electronic index is developed to detect the page number of a word or a name searched for in adictionary or a telephone guide. See Figure 1.
To illustrate the scope of one electronic index, we take the a,b,c,.... alphabet as example. Thus an electronic index based on this alphabet would serve : i) all telephone guides with languages based on this alphabet, ii) all dictionaries from a language based on this alphabet to itself, and, iii) all dictionaries from a language based on the a,b,c,... alphabet to other languages which may or may not use the same alphabet.
The description of the electronic index will be given for the a,b,c,... alphabet. Other languages using other alphabets, languages written from top to bottom, and languages written from right to left can be treated the same way.
First, a "written index for the dictionary or the telephone guide will be prepared as follows. Each page number will be assigned the first five letters of the word on the top left-hand side of the page. This will be made in increasing order of page number. If one of these words has less than five letters, it will be completed by the letter a.
Second, the "written index" will be passed to the electronic index designer who will prepare a "technical index" as follows.
He will check that every word appears Just once in the "written index" (a word may appear more than once in very big dictionaries or telephone guides).By a word we mean the first five letters of words as stated before. If, for example, he finds that the word organ is assigned to the 3 pages 246, 247,248, then he will write it only once and assign to it the page number 246-2, which means that the word appears on page 246 and the two pages after it.
Then he will devide the "written index" into groups of words and their corresponding pages number, each group has the same first two letters. At the begining of each group he will add the last word(and its page number) in the group before it while including the word(and its page number)in its group.
He will assign a 4-digit number to each group which will correspond to the first two letters of the words of the group, using 00 for a, 01 for b, 02 for c, ... . It will be called "group number" later.
He will design the electronic index such that when the user presses the first five letters of a word, they will appear on display. Also the group number will be displayed preferably without pressing the Enter botton. The electronic index should also store a 6-digit number corresponding to the last three letters of the given word. In what follows, this 6-digit number will be called "given word number". Naturally, the group number and the given word number will have the same assignment rule.
The designer will then prepare suitable "subcodes" and "codes" for the written index as follows subcode : certain code corresponding to a 6-digit number assignedfor the letters 3,4,and 5 of the words of the writtenindex, except for the first line of each group wherethe code corresponds to a 10-digit number assigned forall the word. Naturally the 6-digit numbers and the10-digit numbers should have the same assignment ruleused for the group number and the given word number.
code : is a subcode to which is added a certain code of thepage number.
The technical index will be arranged as follows. The groups will be written one after the other in increasing order of the group number. It is enough to write the group number Just once within the group. To the right of the group number there will be, in - order : i) the code of the last word of the group before it, ii) the codes of the words of the group written in order.
To make it more comfortable, a "cover page" giving the location of the group number in the subsequent pages of the technical index, may be added.
The electronic index will be supplied with a mean to "read" the codes. It will also store them or act on them right-away. It should be capable of handling a full group, either by storing it or storing only part of it then repeat or act on the codes without storing them(while moved on them). The reading element of the electronic index could be set on the surface of the lower side, which measures, say,1x7 cm(0.45x3.15 in ). The electronic index and the technical index could be made such that several codes could be read at one time. In this case the electronic index should be capable of registering the order of the codes.
To use the electronic index with a dictionary or a telephone guide for which a technical index is prepared, we start by pressing the first five letters of the word. They will appear on display. Also the group number will appear on display, preferably without pressing the Enter botton. Then we use the "cover page" of the technical index to know the page number of the group in the subsequent pages of the technical index. We then move the electronic index on all the codes of the group in the correct order with its reading side facing the page and its surface facing the user.
There will be two possibilities for the electronic index i) it can read and act right-away. In this case the need forstoring the codes will be small.
ii) it will read and store the codes. The order of reading isimportant and should be assigned to the read code.
The action taken by the electronic index will be as follows i) it will transfer only the subcodes into their corresponding 6-digit numbers#or 10-digit number for the first subcode). These numbers will be called "subcode numbers" in what follows.
ii) it will compare (less than, equal, greater than) the subcode numbers with the given word number, except for the first subcode which will be compared with the group number plus the given word number considered together as one 10-digit number.
The result will be one of the following two possibilities i) the given word number coincides with a subcode number. In this case the given word must be in the very neighborhood of the top left-hand side word on the page with page number assigned to this subcode. The electronic index should transfer the code of the page number of this page and the page before it into their pages number and display both of them.
ii) certain subcode number is smaller than the given word number but the subcode number immediately after it is greater than the given word number. In this case the given word must be on the page with smaller subcode number or it is not in the dictionary or the telephone guide. The electronic index should transfer the code of the page number of the page with smaller subcode into the page number and display the page number.
If the electronic index is capable of reading and acting rightaway, then it should display the page number while it is moved on the codes. Otherwise, it may read all the codes of the group, store them in order, then make the comparison. Or it may do the work on steps, each time taking some of the codes. Also it is preferable that the codes be written from top to bottom such that the user can see the face of the electronic index while moving it.
Notice that only one group is used when searching for one word.
It may happen that the group number displayed by the electronic index is not in the technical index and that it is greater than certain group number of the technical index but smaller than the group number immediately after. In this case we use the group with greater number.