Patents by Inventor Doyne L. Metz

Doyne L. Metz has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Identification of liquid crystal display panels
    Patent number: 5771028
    Abstract: A method that identifies the type of LCD panel used in a portable computer system based on the frequency of the oscillator signal of the DC-to-AC inverter in the LCD panel. In this method, only one signal is routed from the LCD panel to the base unit of the portable computer system for the purpose of panel identification. The inverter oscillating signal is used to increment a counter during power on operations. A system counter, which is clocked by a system clock, is used to determine the number of system clocks needed for the panel identification counter to reach a predetermined count. That number is compared with the entries of a table, in which each entry corresponds to a type of LCD panel. In this manner, the type of LCD panel can be identified based on the frequency of the inverter signal. A corresponding entry in a second table is accessed to obtain a table entry for the identified LCD panel to a full table of LCD panel parameters. The table entry is stored in a predetermined location in the Video ROM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 7, 1995
    Date of Patent: June 23, 1998
    Assignee: Compaq Computer Corporation
    Inventors: Scott W. Dalton, Doyne L. Metz
  • Single shared ROM for storing keyboard microcontroller code portion and CPU code portion and disabling access to a portion while accessing to the other
    Patent number: 5603055
    Abstract: A shared keyboard and system ROM uses a single ROM for both the keyboard and the system operating system information (BIOS). The shared ROM is never simultaneously used for both of these functions. At initial boot-up, the system processor executes from the shared ROM to copy the system BIOS information to the system Random Access Memory DRAM. Once this copying has been completed, the shared ROM then is used by the keyboard subsystem. Different address ranges are employed in the shared ROM for the keyboard information and for the system BIOS.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 1994
    Date of Patent: February 11, 1997
    Assignee: VLSI Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: David R. Evoy, Lawrence D. Gould, James R. Edwards, Donald G. Scharnberg, Doyne L. Metz
  • Identification of liquid crystal display panels
    Patent number: 5495263
    Abstract: A method that identifies the type of LCD panel used in a portable computer system based on the frequency of the oscillator signal of the DC-to-AC inverter in the LCD panel. In this method, only one signal is routed from the LCD panel to the base unit of the portable computer system for the purpose of panel identification. The inverter oscillating signal is used to increment a counter during power on operations. A system counter, which is clocked by a system clock, is used to determine the number of system clocks needed for the panel identification counter to reach a predetermined count. That number is compared with the entries of a table, in which each entry corresponds to a type of LCD panel. In this manner, the type of LCD panel can be identified based on the frequency of the inverter signal. A corresponding entry in a second table is accessed to obtain a table entry for the identified LCD panel to a full table of LCD panel parameters. The table entry is stored in a predetermined location in the Video ROM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 1994
    Date of Patent: February 27, 1996
    Assignee: Compaq Computer Corp.
    Inventors: Scott W. Dalton, Doyne L. Metz