Recent advances in electron sources and electron resists have resulted in a significant increase in potential exposure rate in electron-beam writing instruments. This in turn places stringent requirements on the pattern generating electronics which must be fast enough to avoid their limiting potential system throughout, yet flexible enough to be capable of creating all normally required geometries. A computer-controlled pattern generation system is described which is designed to meet these requirements. In this system, the speed limitation due to the calculation and data-transfer rate of modern minicomputers is avoided by the use of an auxiliary special-purpose logic processor. Patterns are built up from a basic trapezoid shape with two sides parallel to rectangular cartesian coordinate axes. The computer has only to specify the basic parameters defining a trapezoid and the auxiliary processor will then output coordinates representing the end points of lines defining the figure in a raster-scan format. These coordinates, which may be generated at rates up to 1 MHz are passed to a pair of precision ramp generators. The ramp generators, which are based on commercially available 16-bit digital-to-analog converters, then produce the analog deflection signals needed to define the line, at a sweep rate which may be varied under computer control over six orders-of-magnitude. Particular care has been taken to reduce the switching spikes, inherent in digital-to-analog converters, to negligible proportions on the output waveform.