Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display peripheral interface input device – Including keyboard
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-19
2002-03-12
Shalwala, Bipin (Department: 2673)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display peripheral interface input device
Including keyboard
C345S169000, C345S171000, C400S110000, C400S486000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06356258
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for inputting Japanese or English and more particularly to a keyboard apparatus for performing input operation for a portable telephone such as PHS (Personal Handy-phone System), electronic notebook, wrist watch, small-sized word processor and personal computer.
2. Discussion of the Background
Information apparatus such as a personal computer is nowadays extensively used in offices and at home. Such information apparatus include desktop and laptop personal computers and PDAs.
Now the typical way of inputting characters with the PDAs is by means of a keyboard.
The most widely used keyboard inputting method is an input method utilizing the Alphabet. The Alphabet is widely utilized not only for inputting English but also Japanese by means of the Romanized Japanese Character input method since there are only 26 characters to memorize, enabling an operator to use the blind touch method.
Now a conventional keyboard consists of more than 80 keys arranged in a complicated manner, making it difficult to be miniaturized. Moreover, a plurality of keys have to be manipulated by both hands, making it difficult to acquire the input operation.
On the other hand, functions for inputting and storing data like addresses in telephones and wrist watches have been greatly improved and although much endeavors have been made with various kinds of apparatus requiring such miniaturization to reduce the number of keys in order to input Japanese and English characters, manipulation has not been very satisfactory.
For instance, keys or buttons of a portable telephone with a built-in address book function is usually provided with a function for inputting characters as well. More precisely, in order to input Japanese in “Katakana”, a square type of the Japanese Syllabary, with a conventional portable telephone, numerals from “1” through “0” are used to input characters in the “
”/A Group/, “
”/KA Group/, “
”/SA Group/ and so on, up to the
/Group, including the characters
(WA,WO and N) in the Japanese Syllabary arrangement of 50 sound syllables' order.
It is also configured in such a way that, when a key set to the “A Group” is pressed once, the character “A” is outputted, when pressed twice the character “I” is outputted, when pressed three times the character “U” is outputted, when pressed four times the character “E” is outputted, and when pressed five times the character “O” is outputted.
Furthermore, in order to input in English, seven keys are provided for the characters “ABC”, “DEF”, “GHI”, “JKL”, “MNO”, “PQRS”, “TUV” and “WXYZ” respectively, and the characters are selected and inputted corresponding to the number of pressing operations of a key.
This kind of conventional character arrangement however poses a problem in that Japanese “Kana” characters require maximum 5 times and English characters maximum 5 times of key pressing operations, making the input operation complicated and high-speed input impossible.
In particular, since the number of key pressing operations necessary for an input is determined without taking into consideration the frequency of usage of characters which necessitates on the average three to four times of key pressing operations when inputting a plurality of characters with the “Kana” or Alphabet, making the input operation cumbersome.
Moreover, it poses a problem that, although a long sound vowel key “
”/t/, or a long vowel symbol
are relatively frequently used in the Japanese language, it is necessary, in order to input the long sound vowel key “
”/t/, to press a key in the “
”/TA Group/ three times to obtain a large character “
”/T/ and then press a small character key to obtain a small character “
”/t/, making the input operation more complicated, leading to reduction of efficiency of character input operation.
This kind of problem is not only limited to portable telephones but also to wrist watches with address- and schedule-keeping functions, and various types of electronic notebooks, and small-sized personal computers, where the number of keys are reduced to 12 to 15 in order to reduce the size of the apparatus.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a keyboard input apparatus with the least number of keys, which is easy to learn, simple to operate and where number of key pressing operations are reduced, so as to facilitate the input operation, and which can also be easily miniaturized.
Moreover, a second object of the present invention is to provide, in addition to the aforementioned first object, a keyboard input apparatus where the frequently used long sound vowel key “
”/t/ and the long vowel symbol “
” can be easily inputted ,wherebthe efficiency of character inputting operation can even more be improved.
The keyboard input apparatus of the present invention is characterized by the provision of 5 vowel keys and a plurality of consonant keys, the vowel keys being set independently for the characters “A”, “I”, “U”, “E” and “O”, expressing the vowels of the Alphabet, each of the consonant keys having a plurality of characters expressing the consonants, a key input detecting means for detecting the number of consecutive key pressing operations of each of the keys and a key input processing means for outputting character keys corresponding to the number of pressing operations of a particular key.
In such a keyboard input apparatus, the most frequently used vowels both in Japanese and English, namely, “A”, “I”, “U”, “E” and “O” are set to independent keys, making it possible to input those characters by a single key operation. For this reason, the number of key pressing operations for inputting vowels can be reduced, and working efficiency can be improved and input operation can be speeded up, in comparison with the conventional Japanese Syllabary arrangement or the English character arrangement where vowels other than the vowel “A” need to be pressed a plural number of times to be inputted.
Moreover, since a plurality of consonants are set to each consonant key, it is possible to reduce the number of keys and minimize the size of the keyboard input apparatus compared with a keyboard apparatus of the prior art where one character is set to each key. Furthermore, due to lesser number of keys, it is easier to remember the key positions and is simpler to operate.
In addition, since a plurality of characters set in each key can be selected by the corresponding number of pressing operations of the key, a special key, such as a Shift key, can be eliminated for selecting the characters, resulting in the reduction of the number of keys and miniaturization of the apparatus is made possible. Furthermore, as the preset character keys can be selected by altering the number of key pressing operations, manipulation of the apparatus becomes more intuitive and easily comprehensible, contributing to the improvement of working efficiency.
The manipulation for the selection of character keys can be configured such that, by arranging the first to the Nth number of character keys on each of the keys, the key input processing means selects and outputs the Nth character keys when each key is pressed N number of times. More particularly, when a first and a second character keys are set to each of the keys, the key input processing means may be configured such that the first character key will be selected and outputted when the key is pressed once, and the second character key is selected and outputted when the key is pressed twice.
Setting the keyboard input apparatus in this manner facilitates the learning, and manipulation of the keyboard apparatus becomes simpler, since the number of the character keys and the number of key pressing operations required coincide in number.
The key input detecting means is preferably set so that the number of the key pressing operations already executed will be ignored when the key is pressed more number of times than the number designated for the key and recounts from the first key pressing operation.
For example,
Kato Syunji
Kato Yoshiya
Kovalick Vincent E.
Misawa Homes Co. Ltd.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
Shalwala Bipin
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