Abstract: An electronic device including a switch member which has a multiplicity of switch contacts provided thereon, a film liquid crystal display unit disposed above the switch member and having openings provided at positions opposite to the respective switch contacts, and operation members disposed in the corresponding openings so as to depress the operation members from above the film liquid crystal display. By the depression of the respective operation members, the corresponding switch contacts are switched. According to this structure, the switching operations are performed on the film liquid crystal display unit, so that the operability of the switches is improved and the device itself is miniaturized.

Abstract: A music apparatus determines a scale suitable for a given melody. The apparatus includes a motion analyzer which analyzes motion in the melody. In an embodiment, a note coupling evaluator evaluates a coupling coefficient of each note in the melody based on a pitch interval pattern of surrounding notes. Using the evaluated results, a tonic and type of a scale for the melody is determined.

Abstract: If it is determined that a current time when a power switch is operated manually is equal to or close to a reservation time indicated by preset reservation time data, a power source automatically starts supplying a power source current to individual circuits of a broadcasting receiving apparatus main body. Otherwise, supply of a power source current to the individual circuits is not performed. This prevents a receiving unit from unnecessarily receiving a broadcasting electric wave. When completion of broadcasting of all broadcasting contents of a broadcasting program is detected, the power source stops supplying the power source current to the individual circuits of the broadcasting receiving apparatus main body. This also prevents the receiving unit from unnecessarily receiving a broadcasting electric wave.

Abstract: An image data compressing apparatus comprises a transform unit, such as a DCT computation unit, a quantization table memory for plural types of quantization tables, a quantizer which selectively uses the quantization tables, a coder for performing coding in accordance with a pre-given predicted value for the amount of generated codes of each block, memories for storing the amounts of codes for DC components and AC components generated for the individual blocks, a computation unit for computing the sum of the amounts of generated codes for DC components and the sum of the amounts of generated codes for AC components for each properly selected quantization table, and memories for storing the computed sums of the amounts of generated codes, wherein the apparatus uses a plurality of quantization tables to predict a change in the amount of generated codes caused by the alteration of the quantization table in the first compression, and compresses image data to the target amount of generated codes in the second comp

Abstract: When a plurality of effects are simultaneously applied to an input audio signal, a plurality of effect-algorithms each for applying solely an effect to the input signal are stored in a memory, and a plurality of combination-algorithms or combination-data which represent combinations of the effects and orders in which effects are applied to the input audio signal are stored in the memory. When one of the combination-algorithms or the combination-data is selected, effect-algorithms included in the selected combination-algorithm or combination-data are selectively read out from the memory. A program for applying effects in a predetermined combination and order is written by CPU based on the read out effect-algorithms and combination-algorithm or combination-data. Receiving the program, DSP successively applies effects to the input audio signal in accordance with the program.

Abstract: In a stopwatch of this invention, when a lap switch is operated after time measurement is started, a lap time from the immediately preceding lap switch operation to the current lap switch operation is stored and compared with a measurement time after the current lap switch operation. Since an alarm tone is generated if the measurement time after the current lap switch operation coincides with the stored lap time, the immediately preceding lap time can be used as a target time of the time measurement. The stopwatch can be conveniently used when a running speed is increased or decreased in each lap in a track race or the like.

Abstract: Sound information is binarized by delta modulation or adaptive delta modulation. The resulting data is subjected to pulse wide modulation and the resulting data is delivered to a reproducing device, which detects a leading edge of a received signal pulse to produce a self operation timing clock to thereby reproduce a sound. When the reproducing device detects the absence of edges for a predetermined interval after the edge detection, it turns off a power source for an analog circuit to suppress power consumption.

Abstract: In an electronic timepiece having a signal receiving function, the present time at a place where a user is located can be displayed without designating a regional name. The quasi-distance data between the satellites and the signal receiving point is calculated based upon the delay times of the signals transmitted from the satellites. The positional information about the signal receiving point is obtained from four quasi-distance data. Subsequently, this positional information is compared with the longitude/latitude data previously stored in ROM, to search a city located nearest this signal receiving point. Furthermore, a judgement is made whether or not the city located nearest the present receiving point is coincident with the city located nearest the preceding receiving point. If these cities are coincident with each other, then the present time of the city stored in the time counting register is directly displayed.

Abstract: On a compact disk is recorded audio data and/or image data for predetermined pieces of music. Auto-play data which is to be reproduced in synchronism with the audio data and/or image data, and data indicating the recorded position of the audio data and/or image data in association with the auto-play data are stored in an auto-play memory. In executing auto-playing in synchronism with the playing of the audio data and/or image data from a midway of a piece of music, the top of the compact disk is set on the basis of the position data in the memory at the midway point so that the play start points in the memory and the compact disk at the midway point can be matched with each other.

Abstract: A thin film semiconductor device comprises a matrix circuit portion and a peripheral circuit portion. An NMOS thin film transistor included in the peripheral circuit portion comprises as an active layer a polysilicon thin film formed on a substrate, leading to a high on-current and an improved switching speed, compared with a thin film transistor including as an active layer of a polysilicon thin film which is obtained by crystallizing an amorphous silicon thin film. An NMOS thin film transistor included in the matrix circuit portion also comprises as an active layer a polysilicon thin film which is formed on the substrate. However, the gate insulating film of an NMOS thin film transistor in the matrix circuit portion as a whole is made thicker than that in the NMOS thin film transistor included in the peripheral circuit portion because of the presence of a first interlayer insulating film.

Abstract: The lower significant n bits of a first differential value between adjacent sampled values of a sampled received signal are cut off to provide a second differential value, which is then subjected to adaptive quantization to thereby provide data compression. When this data is expanded, the second differential value decoded from the adaptive quantized value is sequentially accumulated by 2.sup.n times at a period corresponding to 1/2.sup.n of the sampling period of the received signal. As a result, a quantizing error (quantization noise) per sampling of the received signal is dispersed in 2.sup.n periods to thereby provide an improved acoustic S/N ratio. When the first differential value of the received signal is quantized, when the lower significant n bits of the first differential value are cut off, and when the resulting signal is subjected to adaptive quantization, the resulting respective quantizing errors are fed to corresponding values processed next.