Abstract: A grinding machine cleaning system and method provides a range of human safe products that can easily be introduced into the grinding chamber and cycled through the equipment. Some of the products include corn cobs, walnut shells, pecan shells, nuts, rice, dried corn kernels, corn meal, barley, wheat, bulgur, and other grain, fiber, legume, nut, bark, and shell products in varying shapes and sizes. Organic products have largely been considered ideal. However, inorganic materials also my be used with equal effect.

Abstract: A system and method for entering text via a numeric keypad. The keypad is logically divided into columns, with each column having four rows. The first column includes at least the keypad number associated with a particular key, the second column includes the lowercase letters associated with the key and the third column contains the shifted versions of the characters in the second column.

Abstract: A cleaner is provided for cleaning the end surface area of a ferrule of a fiber optic connector. The cleaner includes a housing having a mating portion for mating the cleaner with the connector. A cleaning head is movably mounted on the housing for movement across the end surface area. A motor is mounted on the housing and is coupled to the cleaning head for moving the cleaning head in response to operation of the motor. An air jet is mounted on the housing for directing a stream of a cleaning medium toward the cleaning head to remove residue from the end surface area. An exhaust is provided on the housing for removing and evacuating residue from the end surface area. A plurality of the cleaners are mounted on a dummy circuit board for cleaning the end surface areas of the ferrules of a plurality of fiber optic connectors mounted in a given pattern on a backplane of a chassis.

Abstract: An apparatus (10) for automatically adjusting the viewing angle of a liquid crystal display (LCD) (12) is provided. The apparatus (10) includes a controller (26), an LCD driver (28), a memory (30), and a user interface (34). The apparatus (10) is software enabled to perform a screen flip function while concurrently adjusting the viewing angle to correspond to the new screen orientation. The viewing angle is automatically adjusted without user intervention. The apparatus (10) has particular value where the keypads (22) are located on only one side of its display (12). In this manner, the apparatus (10) can be conveniently used by both left-handed and right-handed users.

Abstract: An adapter (42) for connecting a telephone (52) to a telephone wire (40) has a subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC 113) with a jack for connecting a telephone to the SLIC, a line interface (110) for coupling to a telephone line, a signaling circuit (111) coupled to the line interface for receiving and providing subscriber line signaling on the telephone line, a codec (112) coupled to the SLIC, performing a voice coding/decoding function; and a timing circuit (202) for time multiplexing and demultiplexing of digitized voice signals between the SLIC and the line interface.

Abstract: A transmitter (500) transmits an original digital code in a transmitted signal component of a transmitted signal to a receiver (600) through a communication channel. The receiver (600) receives a received signal having a first received signal component and a second received signal component where the transmitted signal component results in the second received signal component. The receiver (600) determines a phase between the received signal and the corresponding transmitted signal by detecting a resulting digital code in the first received signal component. A resulting digital code appears in the first received signal component when the received signal is out of phase with the transmitted signal.

Abstract: A telephony system having automatic timing adjustment for diverse routing of HFC systems has a signal stream routing through a signal line loop between a head-end and at least one communication unit. If a fault occurs within the signal line loop, recognized by the head-end when a short uplink burst from the communication unit does not align within a predetermined timing window, the head-end will cycle through predetermined delay parameters corresponding to various alternate signal line loops made up of redundant signal lines. Once the predetermined delay parameter corresponding to the current alternate signal line loop is determined, normal operation of the system resumes.

Abstract: A multimedia interface station (102) establishes a multimedia sensory data link between the Internet (108) and a subscriber premise (112) eliminating an Internet protocol. Visual and audio data received from the Internet (108) is converted to a multimedia sensory signal at the multimedia interface station (102) and transmitted to a sensory transmission device (150) such as a television (142) in the subscriber premise (112) without using the Internet protocol.

Abstract: A radio unit (12) for communication over a communication channel (300) having repeating frames. The radio unit has a memory (131) with a table (280) of time locations in a frame and indications of the availability of time locations for transmission. A time is selected from the table and a cell of data is transmitted on the channel at the selected time. If an acknowledgement to the cell is received at a receiver (102) the transmitter sends a series of further cells at corresponding times in later frames. Otherwise a different time is selected for a new access attempt. A sequence of ATM cells is prepared for transmission by forming data into cells each having synchronization information (230), a physical layer field (251), a sequence number (253) and an error check number (254). Error coding cells (245) are added, with error coding which is spread across the cells such that a lost cell is recoverable from adjacent cells.

Abstract: A self synchronizing network protocol which allows networks to become self synchronizing. Two pairs of nodes communicate in an ad hoc packet radio network. Packets are communicated over a plurality of frames of time. A known bit field is appended to each packet. A clock at the first pair of nodes (10 and 12) is unavoidably slower than the clock at the second pair of nodes (14 and 16). As a result, packets transmitted from the second pair of nodes (14 and 16) will eventually overlap packets transmitted from the first pair of nodes (10 and 12). Errors in the appended field (17) can be used to detect such an overlap in advance to prevent damage to the payload. The protocol provides for additional channel efficiency, more responsiveness and the ability to grow without a central controller. Further, the ability to accommodate new traffic is increased.