JPH0470648B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to electronic equipment such as a portable electronic dictionary to which a memory cartridge can be attached or removed.

(b) Conventional technology In electronic dictionaries, it is now possible to configure multiple types of dictionaries, such as English-Japanese, Japanese-English, English-German, and Japanese-German, by replacing the memory cartridge, which is the dictionary ROM. Normally, a single character key is used for Japanese input and alphanumeric keys by writing both on the key top or near the key.

Conventionally, for such equipment,
As disclosed in No. 30619, when inputting English, the character key is pressed as is, and when inputting Japanese, the kana designation key is first pressed, and then the character key is pressed. For example, you can use the keys to translate Mandarin into Japanese and then into Canadian and English.

(c) Problems to be solved by the invention In the conventional technology, one character key can be used for inputting two types of languages, but when inputting Japanese, the character type is input before pressing the character key. The key operation was troublesome because the user had to operate the kana specification key to specify the .

(d) Means for Solving the Problems The present invention stores information indicating the type of input language in a removable memory cartridge, reads the information, and executes a program according to the read information. ,
The above problem is solved by providing a selection means for selecting either a code conversion table for the first language or for the second language.

(e) Effect In the present invention, since either the Japanese or English code conversion table is specified by the selection means according to the information in the memory cartridge, the code conversion table can be used not only when inputting English but also when inputting Japanese. All you have to do is press the corresponding character key when inputting, and there is no need to specify the character type.

(C) Embodiment FIG. 2 is a plan view of a portable electronic dictionary 1 as an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing its configuration.
Through the memory cartridge, specifically,
The configuration is such that the ROM card 4 is removable. Main body 2
has a display section 5 for displaying input words and corresponding headwords and translations, and a keyboard section 8 having a plurality of character keys 6 and function keys 7, each character key having both Japanese and English characters. ``Kana'' and ``Alphabet'' are written on the key top to make it possible to input.

Furthermore, in the block diagram, 9 is a CPU as a processing device, 10 is a timer circuit that generates an output at a predetermined period, 11 is a program ROM that stores a program, 12 is a RAM, 13 is a display drive circuit,
14 is an internal dictionary ROM which is an English-Japanese dictionary, 15 is for selecting either the internal dictionary ROM 14 or the ROM card 4, and when selecting the internal dictionary ROM 14, press "L",
A memory selection switch 16 outputs a detection signal SW of "H" when the ROM card 4 is selected, and an English code converter 16 stores the correspondence between the key code output from the keyboard section 8 when a character key is pressed and the alphanumeric character code. 17 is a Japanese code conversion table that stores the correspondence between key codes and kana character codes; 18 is a selection signal from the CPU 9 for selecting one of the two code conversion tables;
A selection circuit 19 is an interface that selects according to SEL, and the CPU 9 is configured to be interrupted by a timer output.

By the way, the ROM card 4 has multiple types of dictionary contents such as Japanese-English, Japanese-German, English-German, and English-French.
As shown in Figure 3, common format area 2
0, and dictionary information indicating the type of input language is stored at the specific address X. in particular,
In 1 byte of address ”. Furthermore, this ROM card 4 makes it possible to store only the dictionary contents or to store the dictionary contents and its search program together, so if there is a program, the start address of the program is stored as the program information. It is stored at address X+1 in the common format area 20, and if there is no program,
Address X+1 "0" is stored.

The processing contents of this embodiment will be explained below with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 and 5.

When the power is turned on and the memory selection switch 15 is turned on, as shown in the flowchart of FIG.
In the main processing routine, after initialization is executed, the detection signal SW is read and the switch state of the memory selection switch 15 is stored in the RAM 12, and when the switch state indicates the internal dictionary ROM 14, the selection signal is
SEL is set to "L" and the English card conversion table 16 is selected by the selection circuit 18. When the switch status is on the ROM card 4 side, the inserted
One byte of dictionary information at address X of the ROM card is read and its 6th and 7th bits are determined. When the 6th bit is "1", the selection signal
The Japanese code conversion table 17 is selected by setting SEL to "H", and the English code conversion table 16 is selected when the seventh bit is "1". That is, when the inserted ROM card is a dictionary with Japanese as the input language, such as Japanese-English or Japanese-German, the Japanese code conversion table 17 is selected, and when the input language is English, such as English-Japanese or English-German, the Japanese code conversion table 17 is selected. Code conversion table 16 is selected.

Furthermore, program information is read from address
Jumps to the ROM 11 search routine, and if there is a program, jumps to the ROM card 4 search routine. In these search routines, the input key code is converted into a character code by the selected code conversion table and displayed on the display section 5. After that, when the execution key 7a is pressed, the dictionary specified by the switch 15 is displayed. The content is searched, and the headword and bilingual translation corresponding to the input word are displayed on the display section 5.

Incidentally, the switching of the memory selection switch 15 is detected at the time of an interrupt caused by the timer output T. That is, when the CPU 9 is interrupted by the timer output, the detection signal is generated as shown in FIG.
It reads the SW and compares it with the switch state stored in the RAM 12. If there is no change, it simply performs a key scan, but if there is a change, the 4th
It is programmed to return to the mail processing routine shown in the figure. Every time the memory selection switch 15 is switched, the dictionary information of the ROM card 4 is read, and an appropriate code conversion table is automatically selected according to this information.

Therefore, for example, when a Japanese-English dictionary ROM card is inserted as the ROM card 4, when the memory selection switch 15 is switched to the internal side, English can be entered by pressing a character key, and when switched to the ROM card side, You can input Japanese characters just by pressing the character keys.

In the embodiment described above, since the memory selection switch 15 is provided, this switch 15
However, in devices that do not have a memory selection switch 15 and are configured to always search the dictionary in the ROM card when the ROM card 4 is inserted,
As shown in FIG. 6, if a detection circuit 21 is provided to detect whether the ROM card 4 is inserted or removed, and the output of this detection circuit 21 is input in place of the memory selection switch 15, dictionary information can be read when the ROM card 4 is inserted. Similarly, a corresponding code conversion table can be automatically set according to this dictionary information.

(G) Effects of the Invention According to the present invention, information indicating the type of input language is stored in the memory cartridge, and a code conversion table is automatically selected according to this information. Even if it is used for two languages, there is no need to specify the character type, and the desired language can be entered by simply operating the character key corresponding to the input word, making key operations extremely simple. .

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a plan view of the embodiment, Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the storage contents of the ROM card, and Fig. 4 is the processing contents of the main processing routine. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the processing contents of the interrupt processing routine, and FIG. 6 is a block diagram of main parts of another embodiment. 4...ROM card, 5...Display section, 8...Keyboard section, 9...CPU, 14...Internal dictionary
ROM, 15...Memory selection switch, 16...
English code conversion table, 17... Japanese code conversion table, 18... selection circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A character key that serves as a character key for a first language and a character key for a second language, and a first and a second language key for converting the key code from the character key into the character code of the first language and the second language, respectively. 2, the electronic device is equipped with a removable memory cartridge, which stores information indicating the type of input language in the memory cartridge, and reads the information according to the read information. An electronic device comprising a selection means for selecting one of the first and second code conversion tables.