METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LOCAL FUNCTION KEY CONTROL OF SCROLLING ON CERTAIN COMPUTER WORKSTATIONS

A method and apparatus for distributing the processing of cursor-independent scrolling functions, between a host processor and a workstation via a workstation control interface, the workstation control interface being connected to a plurality of workstations, wherein the host processor formulates a data stream incorporating scrollable panel data, definitions of cursor-independent scrolling keys, definitions of scrolling increments, and definitions of scroll indicators; the data stream is transmitted to the workstation control interface, which may be embodied in a workstation controller (or PWS), and the workstation controller (or PWS) formulates a display screen image for transmission to a workstation to which it is connected. A cursor-independent scrolling request received from a workstation is received by the workstation controller (or PWS) and processed for scrolling without further communication with the host processor.