Abstract: The present invention provides protection from electromagnetic interference and electrostatic discharge. The invention teaches a shielding conductor surface enclosure, an interior shielding conductor plane, a contact conductor from the shielding conductor plane and the shielding conductor surface enclosure, a path for electromagnetic signals to pass through a shielding conductor plane, a filter network, and an electrostatic voltage clamp. Protection is provided by filtering the incoming signals, electrically coupling the signals of an undesired bandwidth to a shield barrier, and electrically coupling signals of an undesired voltage to a shield barrier. The shield surface is physically differentiated from the ground plane surface.

Abstract: A docking apparatus for docking a portable data collection terminal in a vehicle is disclosed. The docking apparatus comprises a housing having a terminal cup mounted therein. The terminal cup may pivot about a horizontal axis to facilitate insertion and removal of the data collection terminal. A lever arm assembly may be depressed by a user causing the terminal cup to pivot to facilitate removal of a portable data collection terminal. The lever arm assembly may provide guides which position the data collection terminal for insertion into the terminal cup and prevent lateral movement of the portable data collection terminal once it is fully inserted therein. A retention pin assembly may secure the portable data collection terminal within the docking apparatus.

Abstract: A customizable hand-held data terminal system employs multiple housing bases able to accommodate different components allow the manufacture of hand-held data terminals with a variety of features based on a single design. Because the system according to the present invention does not require the external mounting of components, the ergonomics and basic footprint of the unit remains unaltered. The present system also alleviates problems with moisture resistance, shielding, and survivability under harsh treatment associated with terminals employing externally mounted end cap modules or pod. The present invention employs a plurality of different sized base units which can accommodate a variety of different components and configurations, and wherein the different base units are interchangeable with a single upper surface and user interface comprising a display screen and keypad.

Abstract: A portable data collection terminal has an elongate housing with a hand grip conforming rear surface. A front surface features a numerical keyboard adjacent a lower end of the housing and an LCD screen adjacent the keyboard toward an upper end of the housing. The display screen is of elongate rectangular shape, its length extending longitudinally of the housing of the data terminal. The active area of the display screen is covered by a touch sensitive overlay screen which is configured in one mode of operation of the data terminal into an alphabetical keyboard. The orientation of the display is switchable between orientations in which the line direction of the displayed data extends across or longitudinally of the data terminal. The keys of the numerical keyboard are identified by indicia disposed on a template. The orientation of the template may be sensed to switch the orientation of the displayed data and touch sensitive key identifiers to correspond to the orientation of the indicia on the template.

Abstract: An apparatus and a method for routing data in a radio data communication system having one or more host computers, one or more intermediate base stations, and one or more RF terminals organizes the intermediate base stations into an optimal spanning-tree network to control the routing of data to and from the RF terminals and the host computer efficiently and dynamically. Communication between the host computer and the RF terminals is achieved by using the network of intermediate base stations to transmit the data.

Abstract: A docking apparatus for docking a portable data collection terminal in a vehicle comprises a housing which may be fixed to a surface in the interior of the vehicle, terminal cup mounted in the housing, and a pivoting front panel and a lever arm assembly. The lever, urged by a cam, causes the front panel to pivot and secures the data terminal in the docking apparatus for battery charging or data communication.

Abstract: A printer and method of printing including in a feedback mechanism having an imaging head for imaging, digitizing, or sampling at least a portion of a symbol, a comparator for comparing the imaged portion to a print command provided by a print logic print driver so as to generate print logic update information, whereby the print logic is updated in real time in response to the print logic update information.

Abstract: In an exemplary fast charging system, a hand-held computerized terminal with rechargeable batteries therein may be bodily inserted into a charger receptacle. The terminal may have volatile memory and other components requiring load current during charging.. The system may automatically identify battery type and progressively increase charging current while monitoring for an increase in battery terminal voltage to ascertain the level of load current. The battery temperature may be brought into a relationship to surrounding temperature such that by applying a suitable overcharge current value and observing any resultant temperature increase, the level of remaining battery charge can be determined. For example, if the battery is found to be relatively fully discharged, a relatively high fast-charge rate may be safely applied while monitoring battery temperature.

Abstract: A hand held body for receiving, storing and transmitting information having a keyboard in the top thereof for manually entering information therein. A display is disposed on the top of such body for displaying information which has either been manually entered or scanned in or received from a base radio transceiver. A radio frequency transceiver is also disposed in the hand held body for receiving and transmitting information between the hand held body and the base radio transceiver. A scanner is provided for optically reading information and transmitting such information. A modular housing is provided for holding the scanner and a mechanism is provided for selectively attaching or detaching the housing to a bottom portion of the hand held body whereby the external portions of hand held body in the housing when attached together are small enough to be received in a shirt pocket, whereby the user can store the apparatus in such shirt pocket when not in use.

Abstract: An electronic video display system having a video controller device, a video memory device, a video pattern file, video display driver devices, a video display panel, and a means for controlling the video refresh rate in order to improve the displayed video image are described. Redundant information in a line of the display is written simultaneously rather than sequentially. The overall contrast of the display is thereby enhanced.

Abstract: A code reader configured with a plurality of types of illuminators is disclosed. Having access to the plurality of illuminator types, the code reader controls a reading attempt by first selecting and using one of the available illuminators. If the use of that illuminator fails to yield a valid read, the code reader selects a second of the available illuminators and reattempts the read. Again, upon failure to obtain a valid read, the coder reader selects yet another illuminator and so on until a valid read is obtained else all illuminator options have been exhausted. Illuminator selection order is set as a factory default, but adapts based on actual performance in a users environment. Alternately, illuminator order selection is based on range from the target. Such range may be proximity based, or based on marker beam distance calculations. Additionally, the illuminators are mounted on a single assembly along with read control program memory for ease in upgrade replacement.

Abstract: The present invention includes a user-replaceable components assembly which permits rapid and intuitively obvious replacement of components in devices such as portable electronic devices. An environmental seal is provided around the components to protect the inner circuitry of the electronic device. Shock-resistant mounting of a display panel beneath the keypad and accommodation for the electrical connection between the keypad and the portable electronic device's inner circuitry are also provided. An environmental seal is provided around a touch sensitive panel to protect the inner circuitry of the electronic device. Shock-resistant mounting of a display panel beneath a touch sensitive panel and accommodation for the electrical connection between the touch sensitive panel and the inner circuitry of an electronic device are further provided.

Abstract: The present apparatus is a mobile shopping cart that can automatically keep track of objects selected and carried in the cart and provide a customer using the cart information like the total price of the items carried. The cart has a radio frequency cart base station with a cart antenna connected to a radio frequency cart transceiver. Various novel embodiments of the invention produce a radio frequency field within the shopping cart that is used to communicate with radio frequency tags on objects carried in the cart. The tags contain information about the respective carried object to which the tags are attached. A program function executed by the cart circuit and/or computer controls the cart transceiver to interrogate radio frequency tags within the radio frequency field, i.e. inside the cart to gain information about the carried objects. Tags on objects external to the cart are not interrogated.

Abstract: An antenna used as a voltage and power source is designed to operate with arbitrary load, or front end. The antenna has one or more (number of) loading bars that are placed adjacent to the elements of the antenna at a spacing distance. The real part of the antenna input impedance is changed by adjusting the loading bar length, width, and/or spacing distance and/or the number of loading bars. These changes are implemented to reduce the real part of the antenna input impedance to make it small enough to develop an adequate voltage, Vp, to operated the front end and connected circuitry. In a preferred embodiment, the real part of the antenna input impedance is reduced to the point at which Vp no longer increases. One or more stubs is added to one or more of the antenna elements. The stubs act as two-conductor transmission line and is terminated either in a short-circuit or open-circuit. The short-circuit stubs act as a lumped inductor. The open-circuit stub acts as a lumped capacitor.

Abstract: A method and apparatus efficiently encodes a stream of character codes corresponding to the data characters from a first set of data characters, a number of the data characters also being contained in a second set of data characters which is a subset of the first set of data characters. The method and apparatus according to one exemplary embodiment parses the data stream to remove therefrom all character codes corresponding to data character contained in the second set of data characters. Each of the character codes in the parsed data stream is converted according to a first translation into a first defined number of symbol values and each of the character codes parsed from the data stream is converted according to a second translation into a second number of symbol values. Each of the symbol values corresponds to a symbol element. A method and apparatus also decodes a stream of symbol values, corresponding to a set of efficiently encoded symbol characters, to produce a string of character codes.

Abstract: A printhead having multiple print lines of conventional design and a printhead control system for using the multiple print lines in a variety of operations. In one embodiment, the printhead control system prints an image by superimposing the printing from multiple print lines. In another embodiment, the image is printed by alternating the energization of one print line so that each print line is used to print only 1/3 of the image lines. As a result, the print lines are allowed a relatively long time to cool, thus allowing the printhead to be operated at a faster speed. In another embodiment, the printing elements of each print line print with a different image density, and images printed by superimposing the printing elements in the print lines with a variety of combinations depending upon the desired magnitude of the image density.

Abstract: An improved hand-held data terminal is provided. A sensing circuit senses the presence of rechargeable batteries. A rechargeable battery pack can be used in the hand-held data terminal. The battery pack can include a short circuit element. The short circuit element comes into contact with the hand-held data terminal when the rechargeable battery pack is assembled with the hand-held data terminal. The short circuit element, when in contact with the hand-held data terminal, serves to indicate the presence of the rechargeable battery pack and to thereby enable the recharging capabilities of the hand-held data terminal. A battery pack which does not contain the short circuit element cannot be recharged by the hand-held data terminal since the recharging circuit of the data terminal would remain in a disabled state. Further, the battery pack can be shaped asymmetrically so that it can only be assembled with the hand-held data terminal in an operational orientation.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for maximizing print quality in a thermal printer uses a ribbon condition monitor to detect the condition of a multipass thermal ribbon. Data related to the condition of the thermal ribbon at each individual pixel is used to determine a custom energization signal for each thermal print element. In one embodiment, the system utilizes a history memory to track the prior heating history of each thermal print element and an ink memory to track the prior use of each location on the thermal print ribbon corresponding to the thermal print elements. The data from the history memory and the ink memory are combined to form an index to a table memory containing data corresponding to a plurality of energization signal levels for a particular print medium. The data in the table memory provides the custom energization signal for each of the thermal print elements. In an alternative embodiment, a light source and detector are used to determine the thickness of ink remaining on the thermal ribbon.

Abstract: A gapless label media which can be carried by a liner or be linerless. Apparatus is also disclosed for printing on and applying resultant labels which are staggered laterally across the media width. In an embodiment of the invention, the label printer comprises a printhead for printing on the media, a sensor sensing the leading edge of each first label at a known distance from the printhead, and a drive system moving the plurality of labels from a position of the sensor to a pre-established print position under the printhead. In another embodiment of the present invention, in which there may be lateral drift of the labels, the sensor senses along a path having a width greater than a maximum amount of lateral drift of the plurality of labels. Alternatively, plural sensors may be utilized to detect plural paths through the labels to detect lateral drift of the labels, or to detect alternating ones of the labels.

Abstract: A method and apparatus employs a production system-like rule based routine to process signals, such as reflectance signals produced from machine-readable symbols (e.g., bar code symbols). Relevant features data is extracted from each peak or valley in the signal, such as width, height, and relative size. The routine then uses the extracted data for each peak and valley with a set of rules to refine the reflectance signals. Under one or more iterations, the routine selects and resolves conflicting rules and applies resulting rules to process the signal. The processed signal can then be more readily decoded. The routine preferably processes a reflectance signal in portions, such as on a codeword-by-codeword basis.