John J Knab, Age 7623 Washington Way, Tabernacle, NJ 08088

3992697, Nov 16, 1976

Dec 27, 1974

5/537046

John L. Knab - Philadelphia PA
John J. McIntyre - Ardsley PA

Scan-Data Corporation - Norristown PA

G06K 912

3401463MA

A character recognition system comprising means for scanning a character on a document field, the field being composed of plural features each of which lies in a respectively defined area on the character. A pair of video shift registers, one for positive video and one for negative video, are provided to shift the signals therethrough. Each video shift register includes a plurality of stages for serially storing and shifting a binary quantization of a character pattern sample within said field. Feature extraction logic circuitry is provided and includes a plurality of feature detecting means to provide signals indicative of the recognition of predetermined features as the character pattern is shifted through selected stages of the video shift register. The detecting means include plural mask matrices coupled to said video shift registers. The output of the matrices are provided to encoding means for encoding the signals from the matrices into plural, multi-bit binary codes, one of such codes for each of said geographic areas.