Portable information processing device having input unit

Details Portable information processing device having input unit Portable information processing device having input unit

2001-04-27

2002-11-05

Schuberg, Darren (Department: 2835)

Electricity: electrical systems and devices

Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...

For electronic systems and devices

C361S725000, C312S223100, 36

Reexamination Certificate

active

06477040

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable, especially pocketable, information processing device, or the so-called PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).
2. Description of the Related Art
There is an increasing prevalence in recent years of portable information processors, or the devices called PDA's in particular. They are equipped with input devices and liquid crystal displays in a moderate size suitable for being carried in a breast pocket. Since any of these devices is unable to include a keyboard of sufficient size for fingers as an input device, so it is operated with a pen-like pointing device to move a cursor on a display screen. Furthermore, it is general to use the pointing device for not only pointing information displayed on the screen, but also inputting characters, numerals and symbols.
For the purpose of inputting characters, etc. with a pen-like pointing device, however, it is necessary to allot a part of display screen area to an input area for the characters. Consequently, this allotment further reduces an area for displaying an output within the display screen, which is smaller in itself than those of notebook personal computers. This limits an amount of the output information that can be displayed at a time, thereby making the display screen difficult for the operator to use.
To alleviate this problem, one manufacturer, for instance, provides some of his PDA products with key switches for key-input, besides a portion occupied by the liquid crystal display. Even with this instance, however, there still remains a problem of erroneous input resulting from adjacent keys being pushed by a finger simultaneously, because a pitch of the key switches is very tight.
For such a portable information processor as described above, a display device is generally oriented vertical. This consequently makes the main body a vertically oblong configuration. On the other hand, if the key switches on the keyboard are designed to have a certain interval of key pitch, it is desirable that the input device is shaped laterally oblong, like a keyboard of personal computer. Further, if the display device is arranged to be laterally oblong to match with a width of the input device, a vertical dimension of the display screen becomes small. Therefore, a long sentence is displayed horizontally lengthily, and thereby it makes be difficult for operator to read through the sentence within one screen.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to obviate the above-described problem, and to provide a portable information processing device of outstanding operability for key inputs, with an improved portability by making an input device foldable into a small
To achieve this object, the portable information processing device of this invention comprises:
(a) a base unit which includes a display unit;
(b) an input unit; and
(c) a rotary axis disposed in an orthogonal direction to the base unit and the input unit, for coupling therebetween,
wherein:
(i) the display unit locates in an unexposed position when the input unit is turned in one direction on the rotary axis; and
(ii) the display unit locates in a sufficiently exposed position when the input unit is turned in another direction on the rotary axis.


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