GB2285328A

GB2285328A - Data transfer from selective calling receiver to information processing device

Info

Publication number: GB2285328A
Application number: GB9426300A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Masataka Suzuki; Hiroshi Ono
Original assignee: NEC Corp
Current assignee: NEC Corp
Priority date: 1993-12-28
Filing date: 1994-12-28
Publication date: 1995-07-05
Also published as: GB9426300D0; CN1097221C; CN1122020A; JPH07236166A

Abstract

The system comprises a selective calling receiver 1 incorporating an infrared transmitter 12 and an accessory 2 for an information processing device 3, the accessory 2 incorporating an infrared receiver 20. Data received by the selective calling receiver 1 is transferred to the accessory 2 through an infrared signal. The infrared receiver 20 reproduces the data which is then transferred to the information processing device 3. <IMAGE>

Description

bATA TRANSFER FROM SELECTIVE CALLING RECEIVER TO INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data transfer system for an information processing device, more particularly, to a system in which information is transferred from outside to the information processing device through a selective calling receiver.

2. Prior Art Although a keyboard has been generally used to input data to a data processing device such as a calculator or a portable computer, there have been proposed various data input systems utilizing electromagnetic waves.

A system enabling a computer to receive data from outside through a selective calling receiver is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. He. 3-262069. The computer is provided with an accessory port into which an accessory comprising the selective calling receiver is inserted.

Connecting the selective calling receiver to the accessory port, a paging function is added to the computer.

In addition, Japanese Patent LaAd-Open Publication No. Sho 63-196925 discloses a data input device having an infrared remote control receiver which enables the information processing device to receive infrared data signals from remote places.

Generally, in data processing devices such as a computer, a high-frequency clock signal is used for timing or synchronizing.

Therefore, it is necessary to prevent an electronic device incorporated directly into the computer from the high-frequency clock noise. Thus, in the conventional system wherein the accessory including the selective calling receiver is inserted into the accessory port of the computer, the selective calling receiver needs to be completely protected from clock noise by a shielding member so as to prevent deterioration of receiving characteristics caused by the clock noise. However, there is a problem that such a shielding member prevents miniaturization of the accessory and causes the weight of the accessory to be increased. Furthermore, the above-mentioned conventional accessory has a shape suitable for direct connection to the computer but has no portability. That is to say, there is another problem that portability essential to a selective calling receiver is reduced.

On the other hand, in the other conventional system employing the infrared remote control receiver, data input is performed by manual operation of en infrared remote control transmitter.

Therefore, this system comprises no radio receiver such as a selective calling receiver. Moreover, since the user needs to input necessary data by manual operation referring to messages displayed on the selective calling receiver, accurate and speedy data input cannot be achieved.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide prompt and accurate data transfer from a selective calling receiver to an information processing device without deteriorating the receiving characteristics of the selective calling receiver.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a data transfer system capable of transferring data received by a selective calling receiver to an information processing device promptly and accurately without reducing the portability of the selective calling receiver.

The system according to the present invention is comprised of a selective calling receiver incorporating an infrared transmitter therein and an accessory for an information processing device, the accessory incorporating an infrared receiver therein. Data received by the selective calling receiver is transferred to the accessory through infrared rays.

The infrared transmitter generetes an infrared signal based on the information received by the selective calling receiver. The infrared receiver receives the infrared signal from the selective calling receiver and reproduces the information. The accessory transfers the reproduced information to the information processing device. The irnzention also comprises the receiver and the accessory separately.

Preferably, the selective calling receiver incorporates a receiving data memory for storing the received information. The information can be repeatedly read out from the receiving data memory by a user's instruction. Similarly, the infrared receiver has a message memory for storing the information reproduced by the infrared receiver. The stored information is read out from the message memory and is transferred to the information processing device according to a read instruction of the information processing device.

In the data transfer system according to the present invention, the selective calling receiver away from the data processing device receives data through a radio channel and transfers the received data to the data processing device through an infrared-ray channel as a transmission medium. Since the infrared rays are electromagnetic waves with a frequency band (normally, over 1000 times) higher than a frequency of clock noise radiating from the data processing device, they are not influenced by the clock noise. in addition, the selective calling receiver can be positioned distant from the data processing device, the influence of the clock noise on the receiving characteristics of the selective calling receiver can be dramatically reduced.

In the selective calling receiver according to this invention, it is sufficient that only an infrared transmitter might be mounted therein. Therefore, it is not necessary for the selective calling receiver to change in shape, and its portability is not reduced.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a perspective view of a data transfer system according to an embodiment of the invention; Figure 2 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the data transfer system of Figure 1; Figure 3 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed circuitry of the selective calling receiver of Figure 2; Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed circuitry of the IC card of Figure 2; Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating a signal format in POCSAG system; Figure 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a POCSAG transmission signal; Figure 7 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of controlling the selective calling receiver; Figure 8 is a flowchart illustrating a message resending control in the selective calling receiver; Figure 9 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of controlling the IC card; Figure 10 is a block diagram illustrating an infrared transmitter of the selective calling receiver; Figure 11 is a wave form chart illustrating an operation of the infrared transmitter of Figure 10; Figure 12 is a diagram illustrating a signal format of the serial signal Sg; Figure 13 is a block diagram illustrating an infrared receiver of the IC card; and Figure 14 is a timing chart illustrating an operation of the signal converter in the infrared receiving potion.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to Figure 1, the data transfer system is comprised of a selective calling receiver 1, an IC card 2, and a portable computer 3. In the embodiment, the IC card 2 is an accessory which is capable of being inserted into the computer 3.

The selective calling receiver 1 is provided with a display screen 10, a speaker 11 for waking the user up to call incoming, an infrared transmitter 12 for emitting infrared rays corresponding to received data, and a keypad 13 used for several functions. The IC card 2 is comprised of a infrared receiver 20 for receiving infrared-ray eignals from the selective calling receiver 1 and a connector 21 for connecting electrically to the computer 3. The computer 3 is provided with a card slot 30 for holding the IC card 2 and a connector 31 for connecting with the connector 21 of the IC card 2. The IC cara 2 is connected electrically to the computer 3 when the IC card 2 is inserted into the card slot 30. While being inserted, the IC card 2 may be protruded from the card slot 30 so that the infrared receiver 20 can receive infrared-ray data signal from the selective calling receiver 1.

As illustrated in Figure 2, the selective calling receiver 1 converts the received data to the infrared signal through the infrared transmitter 12 to transmit it to the outside. Under the control of the computer 3, the IC card 2 converts the received infrared signal to the electrical signal, and transfers it to the computer 3 through the connectors 21 and 31. Then, the circuitry of this embodiment will be explained in detail below.

Figure 3 shows a detailed block diagram of the selective calling receiver 1 of Figure 2. An antenna 100 is provided within the selective calling receiver 1, and is connected to a radio receiver 101. A radio wave is received by the receiver 101 through the antenna 100, and is demodulated by a demodulator 102.

A demodulated signal is output from the demodulator 102 to a decoder 103 where the demodulated signal is decoded. An identification number of the selective calling receiver 1 is previously stored in the memory 104.

A Central Processing Unit (CPU) 105 controls the operation of all the components according to a predetermined program stored in a read-only memory (not shown). For instance, the CPU 105 writes the received data decoded by the decoder 103 onto a receiving data memory 106 or reads the received data from the receiving memory 106, drives the speaker 11 through an alert driver 107, drives the display screen 10 through a display driver 108, and performs a resending control or the received message according to a resending instruction received from the keypad 13.

The parallel-to-serial converter i09 converts the received data transferred from the CPU 105 to a serial signal Sg, and outputs it to the signal converter 113 of the infrared transmitter. The signal converter 110, as described later, converts the serial signal Sg to a transmission signal St, and an infrared emitting circuit 111 emits infrared rays according to the transmission signal St.

As illustrated in Figure 4, an infrared receiving circuit 201 receives the infrared rays emitted by the selective calling receiver 1, and outputs a received signal Sr to a signal converter 202. The signal converter 202, as described later, converts the received signal Sr to a serial signal Ss, and outputs it the serial-to-parallel converter 203.

An interface controller 204 controls the serial-to-parallel converter 203 and a message memory 205 according to a control signal received from the computer 3. The output data of the serial-to-parallel converter 203 is transferred to the computer 3 through the connector 21 and is also transferred to the message memory 205. The interface controller 204 is capable of transfer the message data from the message memory 205 to the computer 3 according to a transfer instruction received from the computer 3.

Taking POCSAG (Post Office Code Standardization Advisory Group) scheme as an example, an operation of the selective calling receiver 1 and the IC card 2 will be described hereinafter.

Figure 5 shows a signal format of the POCSAG scheme, and Figure 6 shows an example of POCSAG transmission signal. As shown in Figure 6, let us assume that the first code word of the F2 frame in a batch is the address of the selective calling receiver 1 and the following five code words ranging from the second code word of the F2 frame to the second code word of the F4 frame in the batch are the messages for this receiver 1.

Referring to Figure 7, when a received signal encoded by the encoder 103 is a calling address (YES in step So1), the controller checks whether the received calling number coincides with the identification number stored in the memory 104 (step 5502). If the received calling number coincides with the identification number (YES in step S502), the received messages for this receiver 1 is stored in the receiving data memory 106 (step 5503), the speaker 11 is driven by the alert driver 107 and the received message is displayed on the display screen 10 by the display driver 108 (step 5504). The received message is converted to the serial signal Sg by the parallel-to-serial converter 109, and the infrared transmitter emits the infrared signal corresponding to the serial signal Sg to the IC card 2 (ssos).

Figure 8 shows the resending control of the received message performed by the CPU 105. The received message stored in the receiving data memory 106 can be re-displayed on the display screen 10 and resent to the IC card 2 by the user operating the keypad 13. The CPU 105 checks whether a message resending request occurs (SSIO). If the message resending request occurs (YES of step S5i0), the CPU 105 transfers the message from the receiving data memory 106 to the display driver 108 to display it on the display screen 10 (S511). On the display screen 10, the user can check whether or not the message is to be transmitted.

Then, if the message resending request is verified (YES of step S512), as described above, the infrared signal corresponding to the message is transmitted to the IC card 2 by the infrared transmitter 12 (S513).

The IC card 2 contained by the card slot 30 of the computer 3 is electrically connected to the computer 3 through the connectors 21 and 31. Referring to Figure 9, upon receipt of an infrared signal receiving permission from the computer 3 (YES of step S601), the I/F controller 204 enters the wait state for the infrared signal from the selective calling receiver 1 (S602).

Under this state, if the infrared signal is emitted from the infrared transmitter 12 of the selective calling receiver 1, the infrared signal is received by the infrared receiver 20 of the IC card 2 and is converted to the serial signal Ss by the signal converter 202. When the I/F controller 204 decides that the infrared signal is received (YES of step S602), the serial-toparallel converter 203 converts the serial signal S9 to the parallel signal (S603), and the parallel signal is stored into the message memory 205 and is transferred to the computer 3 through the connector 21 (S604).

In this way, the POCSAG signal received by the selective calling receiver 1 is transferred to the iC card 2 through infrared rays, not radio waves, and is further transferred from the IC card 2 directly to the computer 3.

More detailed configuration and operation of the infrared transmitter 12 and infrared receiver 20 will be explained below.

Infrared Transmitter Figure 10 shows the infrared transmitter 12 of the selective calling receiver 1. The signal converter 110 is comprised of an AND gate, and the infrared emitting circuit 111 is comprised of an amplifier 1001 and an infrared emitting device 1002. The AND gate 110 receives the serial signal Sg from the parallel-toserial converter 109 and a clock signal CLX from a clock generator (not shown), and then outputs the transmission signal St to the amplifier 1001. The CLX signal is a pulse signal having the same period T1 as the pulse width T1 of the serial signal Sg.

These signals are not necessarily synchronized with each other.

The transmission signal amplified by the amplifier 1001 is converted to the infrared signal by the infrared emitting device 1002.

Figure 11 is a wave form chart indicating an example of operation of the infrared transmitter 12. The serial signal Sg is a unipolar-Return-to-2ero coded signal, assuming here that it comprises a bit string of '010110010 '. Receiving the clock signal CLK having the same period as the pulse width of the serial signal sg, the AND gate converts the serial signal CLX to the transmission signal St having the same pulse width as the clock signal CLK. According to the transmission signal St, the infrared emitting device 1002 is driven to output the infrared signal. As shown in Figure 11, the infrared emitting device 1002 emits infrared rays according to the pulse width of the transmission signal St. The period (I/f) of the infrared rays employed in this embodiment is 5 x 10-15 (sec), and the duration of infrared rays corresponding to '1' is ix 10- (sec). It is noted that the serial signal Sg is a start-stop signal with having no parity bit and its start bit comprising one bit.

Infrared Receiver Figure 13 shows the infrared receiver 20 of the IC card 2.

The infrared detecting circuit 201 is comprised of an infrared sensor 2001, an amplifier 2002, and a band pass filter (BPF) 2003. The signal converter 202 is comprised of a toggle circuit 2004, latch circuits 2005 and 2006, an exclusive OR (EXOR) gate 2007, a clock oscillation circuit 2008, and a reset switch 2009.

The toggle circuit 2004 is comprised of a T-type flip-flop circuit, and the respective latch circuits 2005 and 2006 are a D-type flip-flop circuit.

The received infrared signal is converted to an electric signal by the infrared sensor 2001, and the electric signal is output to the toggle circuit 2004 of the signal converter 202 through the amplifier 2002 and the band pass filter 2003. The output S1 of the toggle circuit 2004 is input to the latch circuit 2005, and the output S2 of the latch circuit 2005 is input to the latch circuit 2006. The respective outputs s2 and S3 of the latch circuits 2005 and 2006 are input to the EXOR gate 2007, and the serial signal Ss, which is the output of the EXOR gate 2007, is transferred to the serial-to-parallel converter 203. The operation of the signal converter 202 is explained in detail referring to Figure 14.

Assuming that the infrared detecting circuit 201 receives the infrared signal shown in Figure 11 from the infrared transmitter 12. Therefore, as shown in Figure 14, the received signal Sr output to the toggle circuit 2004 is a pulse signal corresponding to the bit string of '010110010 '.

The toggle circuit 2004 switches its output state between two levels synchronizing with the received signal Sr to output the signal S1 to the latch circuit 2005. The latch circuit 2005 outputs the signal 62 delaying for one clock, and the latch circuit 2006 outputs the signal S3 delaying for more one clock.

Then, the EXOR gate 2007 performs a logical exclusive OR function on the signais 52 and 53, and outputs the serial signal Ss having the same bit string as the transmission signal St of 'O101'0010 '.

The serial signal Ss is converted to the parallel signal by the serial-to-parallel converter 203, and is transferred to the computer 3 through the connector 21 under the control of the I/F controller 2G4.

The accessory according to Whws invention is not necessarily limited to an IC card as described above, but may be any electronic device capable of being inserted into the I/O slot of a data processing device. In addition, the data processing device is not necessarily limited to a computer, but may be information processing equipment having a slot into which the accessory such as IC cards, etc. can be inserted.

Each feature disclosed in this specification (which term includes the claims) and/or shown in the drawings may be incorporated in the invention independentiy of other disclosed and/or illustrated features.

The appended abstract as filed herewith is included in the specification by reference.

Claims

CLATMS:

1. A system for transferring information received by a selective calling receiver to an information processing device, comprising: generating means for generating an infrared signal based on the information, the generating means being provided in the selective calling receiver; receiving means for receiving the infrared signal from the selective calling receiver to reproduce the information, the receiving means being provided in an accessory directly incorporated into the information processing device; and transferring means for transferring the information from the accessory to the information processing device.

2. A system according to claim 1, further comprising: first storage means for storing the information, the first storage means being provided in the selective calling receiver; and first read control means for reading the information from the first storage means to output it to the generating means according to a user's instruction, the first read control means being provided in the selectIve calling receiver.

3. A system according to claim 1 or claim 2, further comprising: second storage means for storing the information reproduced by the receiving means, the second storage means being provided in the accessory; and second read control means for reading the information from the second storage means to output it to the transferring means according to an instruction of the information processing device, the second read control means being provided in the accessory.

4. A method for transferring information received by a selective calling receiver to an information processing device, comprising the steps of: generating an infrared signal based on the information in the selective calling receiver; receiving the infrared signal from the selective calling receiver to reproduce the information in an accessory directly Incorporated into the information processing device; and transferring the information from the accessory to the information processing device.

5. A method according to claim 4, further comprising the steps of: storing the information into a memory provided in the selective calling receiver; and reading the information from the memory to generate the infrared signal according to a user's instruction in the selective calling receiver.

6. A method according to claim 4 or claim 5, further comprising the steps of: storing the information reproduced from the infrared signal into a memory provided in the accessory; and reading the information from the memory to transfer it to the information processing device according to an instruction of the information processing device.

7. A method according to claim 4, wherein the step of receiving the infrared signal is performed according to receiving permission of the information processing device.

8. A system for transferring information from a selective calling receiver to an information processing device provided with an accessory port, comprising an accessory directly incorporated into the accessory port of the information processing device, whereIn: the selective calling receiver comprises: radio receiving means for receiving the infornatlon having a predetermined address through a radio channel; and infrared transmitting means for emitting an infrared signal based on the information received by the receiving means, the accessory comprises: infrared receiving means for receiving the infrared signal from the selective calling receiver to reproduce the information, and transferring means for transferring the information from the accessory to the information processing device.

9. A selective calling receiver according to claim 8, further comprising: first storage means for storing the information received by the radio receiving means; and first read control means for reading the information from the first storage means to output it to the infrared transmitting means according to a user's instruction.

10. A selective calling receiver according to claim 8 or claim 9, wherein the transmitting means comprIses: signal conversion means for converting the information to a transmission pulse signal; and infrared emitting means for emitting the infrared signal according to the transmission pulse signal.

1'. An accessory according to claim 8, wherein the infrared receiving means comprises: infrared detecting means for detecting the infrared signal and converting it to an electric signal; and signal conversion means for converting the electric signal to the information.

12. An accessory according to claim 8 or claim 11, wherein the transferring means comprises: storage means for storing the information reproduced by the infrared receiving means; and read control means for read the information from the storage means to output it to the information processing device according to a read instruction of the information processing device.

13. A system, a receiver or an accessory substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.