Abstract: An apparatus for recording and reproducing optical information on and from an optical record medium such as optical card including an optical device having semiconductor lasers 1, 2, diffraction gratings 6, 10a, 10b and objective lens 3 for projecting a recording light beam, two verifying light beams and plural reproducing light beams onto plural adjacent tracks on the optical card 4, and a photo-detector 16 having two verifying light receiving sections 27c and 27e which receive the verifying light beams reflected by the optical card and at least one leak light receiving section 28 which receives only the undesired recording light beams reflected from the optical card 4. Output signals from the verifying light receiving sections 27c and 27e are corrected by an output signal from the leak light receiving section 28.

Abstract: An optical head irradiates a light beam on an optical recording medium having a plurality of tracks on which data is recorded and a plurality of guide tracks for separating the plurality of tracks, and receives a response light beam from the optical recording medium. A count control signal generation circuit performs predetermined calculation of an output from the optical head, thereby generating three binary count control signals having different phases, which represent the position of the light beam on the tracks and the guide tracks along a direction of the light beam crossing the tracks. A count pulse generation circuit generates a count pulse on the basis of a transition path for positioning the light beam, which is defined by the three count control signals from the count control signal generation circuit. A track count circuit counts the count pulse output from the count pulse generation circuit while recognizing the moving direction of the light beam.

Abstract: In an optical card recording/reproducing apparatus having a multi-track read type optical head in which a reproducing light beam is radiated on a plurality of tracks on an optical card having a large number of tracks parallel to each other so as to cause a plurality of reproducing light-receiving elements to simultaneously reproduce data of the plurality of tracks on which the reproducing light beam is radiated, the light beam is moved such that the maximum or minimum address of addresses of the tracks irradiated by the light beam is located at the target track. After one multi-track reproduction is performed, the light beam is moved by the distance corresponding to the number of multi-tracks.

Abstract: An optical information recording and reproducing apparatus comprising a first and a second laser diodes for generating recording light and reproducing light, respectively. A light emission condition of the second laser diode is always controlled to the constant or predetermined light intensity which is adequate for reproduction, by an APC circuit. The first laser diode is controlled by a light-intensity control circuit so as to be brought to the intensity of light emission lower than a level which forms a pit on an optical card, in a reproducing mode other than a period of time of a recording mode. Under a focus and tracking control due to the reproducing light, a value of a focus error and a value of a tracking error due to the recording light at a low level are detected and sampled/held as a focus offset and a tracking offset. During a period of time of the recoding mode, focus control and tracking control due to the reproducing light are performed so that these offsets are brought to zero.

Abstract: In an optical card recording/reproducing apparatus having a multi-track read type optical head in which a reproducing light beam is radiated on a plurality of tracks on an optical card having a large number of tracks parallel to each other so as to cause a plurality of reproducing light-receiving elements to simultaneously reproduce data of the plurality of tracks on which the reproducing light beam is radiated, when the light beam is to be moved to a target track to be reproduced, the maximum value of an error to be caused during moving the optical head is subtracted from a difference between a current track and the target track so as to determine a moving amount, or when an error generated during the movement of the optical head is represented by .+-.G, and the number of light-receiving elements is set to be 2G+1 or more, any one of the light-receiving elements can be located on the target track by moving the optical head once.

Abstract: An optical information recording/reproducing device is constituted of a focus control circuit connected to a controller, a tracking control circuit, a data processing circuit, and a card feed control circuit. The data processing circuit includes a plurality of I/V converters for converting signals received by a plurality of signal reproducing light receiving elements arranged to an optical detector into current/voltage, and a plurality of binary circuits each for converting the output from the I/V converters into a binary signal in a reference level. The data processing circuit includes a selector for selecting at least two outputs of a plurality of binary circuits. The data processing circuit includes a plurality of bit-clock producing circuits and a plurality of demodulation circuits. The bit-clock producing circuits produce bit clocks based on binary signals originated from selectors and a plurality of binary circuits which are not connected to the selectors.

Abstract: An optical information recording/reproducing apparatus for performing tracking servo and at least one of recording and reproducing information by irradiating a recording medium having a plurality of guide tracks and a plurality of information tracks with a light spot and by generating a track error signal from reflected light of the light spot.

Abstract: In an optical card reproducing apparatus, the data of a front ID portion is read, and whether a track address can be identified is determined. If the track address cannot be identified, a flag is reset, and the data of a data portion is read. If the track address can be identified, whether the identified track address coincides with a target track address is determined. If they do not coincide, the operation is ended. If they coincide, the flag is set, and the data of the data portion is read. After the data read from the data portion is stored in a buffer memory, whether the flag is set is determined. If the flag is set, data in the buffer memory is output as the data of the target track. If the flag is reset, the data of a rear ID portion is read, and whether the track address is identified is determined. If the track address cannot be identified, the buffer memory is cleared, and the operation is ended.

Abstract: According to the optical information recording/reproducing device of the present invention, upon recording of information, when a pit image on an optical detector which is formed by a recording optical beam spot at an information recording time arrives at a position of a O-order diffraction light spot image, while an optical card is moving in the forward direction, a light receiving element for signal reproducing senses a change in light amount. A verify signal is obtained immediately after recording based on the light amount change to perform a verify operation. Further, when a pit image on the optical detector formed by the recording optical spot arrives at a position of the image of the primary diffraction optical spot while a moving direction of the optical card is reversed and the optical card moves in the reverse direction to perform recording, a signal reproducing light receiving element senses a change in light amount.

Abstract: An optical information recording/regenerating apparatus includes an optical head for irradiating a regeneration light spot to a plurality of tracks on an optical recording medium simultaneously via an objective optical system. A regenerating arrangement is provided for simultaneously scanning the plurality of tracks to which the optical head has irradiated the regeneration light spot, and then reading recorded information from the plurality of tracks. An error-correcting arrangement is provided which receives the recorded information read by the regenerating arrangement for performing error correction using the error-correcting codes for the plurality of tracks. An error-correction result memory arrangement is provided for storing results that indicate whether or not the error-correcting arrangement succeeded in error correction.

Abstract: A beam-spot control unit is arranged such that a light beam is irradiated onto an optical recording medium having a plurality of tracks, through an objective lens, to detect reflecting light of beam spots formed on the tracks by three or more photo detecting elements which are arranged in a direction corresponding to a track transverse direction. From a tracking error signal which is generated by a difference signal of pairs of photo detecting elements which are selected by a selecting switch from these photo detecting elements, a control signal is generated which positions the beam spots to a plurality of recording lines within a single track. A tracking control mechanism is utilized to enable positioning of the beam spots to a plurality of recording lines within the single track to be performed.

Abstract: A light beam emitted from a light emitting element is trimmed by a collimation lens to produce a parallel light. The parallel light is converged on an optical card by an objective. Light returned from the optical card forms an image on a read/track detector through a beam splitter. A binary-coded signal generator generates binary-coded signals from detected signals of the read/track detector. The binary-coded signal generator comprises a plurality of I-V converters for converting the detected signals in every track of the read/track detector in current and voltage, and a plurality of binary circuits for comparing the signals converted in current and voltage with a plurality of comparison values and thus generating binary-coded signals.

Abstract: Tracks formed on an optical card loaded into a card holder are scanned so that ID information about a reference position on the card is read. This ID information may be used to correct an appraisal of where the card is loaded on the card holder. If the correction operation fails, then the optical head is moved in a direction transverse to the tracks to again perform the correction operation at another track.

Abstract: In a track control circuit for an optical car recording/reproducing apparatus, a light beam for optically recording or reproducing information is incident on a desired track of an optical card having a plurality of tracks through a focusing lens. A beam reflected by a desired track of the optical card is detected by a photosensor, and a track error signal is generated as a signal representing a deviation of the reflected beam. A track actuator moves the focusing lens in horizontal and vertical directions so as to position the focusing lens on the track of the optical card in accordance with a track error signal gain-controlled by a variable gain amplifier. The variable gain amplifier receives a control signal from a CPU so as to change the gain of the track error signal in accordance with the amplitude of the generated track error signal.

Abstract: A method of accessing an optical card comprises a first accessing step of making a beam spot projected from an optical head access a target track on the optical card, on those regions of the optical card which are on the outside of ID areas situated on the optical card at its both end portions along an axis of movement of the optical card, a detecting step of detecting whether a tracking error of the beam spot has occurred, following the completion of the first accessing step, and a second accessing step of making, where the tracking error of the beam spot has been detected, the beam spot access the target track on the region on the side opposite to the side where the tracking error has occurred.

Abstract: An optical information recording/reproducing apparatus performs at least one of recording and reproducing of information by applying an optical spot to a record medium having a plurality of guide tracks and a plurality of information tracks.

Abstract: An optical information recording/reproducing apparatus in which a deviation of a neutral position of an objective lens from a reference position in a tracking direction is detected as an off-set signal and the position of the objective lens is controlled on the basis of the thus detected deviation such that that the neutral position of the objective lens is coincident with the reference position before a tracking servo operation is initiated. The deviation of the neutral position of the objective lens from the reference position in the range at which the objective lens is moved under the tracking servo control system is corrected. Therefore, even if the apparatus is set in an inclined manner, the tracking servo operation and the other desired operations conducted on the basis of the off-set signal can be always conducted in a stable manner.

Abstract: The results output from a comparator, which makes a comparison to determine whether or not the drive current to be supplied to a focusing/tracking actuator of an optical system in which light beams are condensed and applied to an optical recording medium, are counted in each supervisory period at periodical intervals. If the counted value is larger than a predetermined value, supply of the drive current to the actuator is cut so as to prevent burning or the like of the actuator by the supplied excessively large electric current.

Abstract: An apparatus for reading and writing a data signal from and on an optical card including an optical head having a semiconductor laser for emitting a writing light beam, a light emitting diode for emitting a reading light beam, a first object lens for projecting the reading light spots onto the optical card, a second objective lens for projecting the reading light beam reflected by the optical beam onto a photodetector and a half mirror arranged in an optical axis of the second objective lens, a driving mechanism for moving the optical card in it lengthwise direction, and a focusing control mechanism for moving the optical head in a direction normal to the surface of the optical card.

Abstract: An optical card recording/reproducing apparatus includes a holding member for holding a recording medium inserted to perform data recording/reproducing. An optical head includes a converging lens for converging a light beam for recording/reproducing on the recording medium. A position control section moves the holding member and optical head by a predetermined distance to conform the converging position of the converging lens to the position of the recording medium close to the holding member. A focus search circuit searches a focal point by changing the distance between the converging lens and recording medium at the position close to the holding member, and outputs an in-focus detection signal. A focus control section controls the distance between the converging lens and recording medium to maintain a focal relationship between the converging lens and recording medium in response to the in-focus detection signal output from the focus search circuit.