Abstract: On word starts, the system displays sets of very frequent words and attributes in locations which associate them with input actions. Possible attributes include letters, phonetic sounds, character strokes or parameters as appropriate for the language. Attributes inputted select word sets from a vocabulary which has N sets of a plurality of word sets in which the words of each set share a unique set of one to N attributes. The display presents accessed word sets which the user may search for wanted words. Vocabulary words include codes to select inflection sets when they are selected. For alphabetic languages, spelling rules and a store of modified word ends and inflection starts are used in the application of inflections. Selected words, with or without inflections, are outputted by input actions which may append `Space` or punctuation endings. User actions on keyboard and/or stroke sensing apparatus input attributes and select, inflect, and output words with endings.

Abstract: On word starts, the system displays sets of very frequent words and attributes in locations which associate them with input actions. Possible attributes include letters, phonetic sounds, character strokes or parameters as appropriate for the language. Attributes inputted select word sets from a vocabulary which has N sets of a plurality of word sets in which the words of each set share a unique set of one to N attributes. The display presents accessed word sets which the user may search for wanted words. Vocabulary words include codes to select inflection sets when they are selected. For alphabetic languages, spelling rules and a store of modified word ends and inflection starts are used in the application of inflections. Selected words, with or without inflections, are outputted by input actions which may append `Space` or punctuation endings. User actions on keyboard and/or stroke sensing apparatus input attributes and select, inflect, and output words with endings.

Abstract: An electronic data storage and retrieval system, particularly embodied in an electronic watch instrument interrogated and controlled by a timed sequence of voltage pulses generated by the user's actuation of a switch or by his tapping or otherwise impacting an electroacoustic transducer such as a small earphone. For audible readout the instrument circuitry, when interrogated, drives the transducer to produce a coded sequence of tones easily learned by the user. The instrument may include an optical readout capability. Register means are provided for auxiliary data and for an alarm capability, and suitably coded user-produced voltage pulses serve to set a desired time in the alarm register, to arm or disarm the alarm, to read out the alarm time, to reset the basic time of the instrument, and to arm or disarm a periodic time readout.

Abstract: The present invention uses a speech synthesizer apparatus to produce sounds in response to code input received from a code record pick-up manually moved over a selected strip on a code record sheet or panel. The code record sheet or panel has visual symbols, such as printed material or pictures, identifying the sound produced from each strip. One embodiment uses a speech synthesizer having a microcomputer which responds directly to the record pick-up output. Other embodiments include separate encoding and buffer storage apparatus interposed between the record pick-up output and the speech synthesizer. One embodiment uses bar code read pens and optical bar code records printed on paper pages or sheets along with the message text, other embodiments use strips with bumps or gitches or both and bump or gitch sensing pick-ups, such as phonograph pick-ups.

Abstract: A number of analog type time displays for electronic watches and the like use electro-optical elements, such as liquid crystals, to present hour and minute hand positions. The embodiments use 12 and 24 hour elements to show the hour positions and to cooperate with 24 or 60 minute elements to show the minute positions. One set of embodiments uses 24 minute elements in combination with 12 or 24 hour elements to show 24 minute hand positions and, additionally, to indicate the other 36 minute positions as one minute before or after the 24 minute hand positions by periodically turning on the before or after adjacent minute element. Another set of embodiments uses 60 minute elements shaped to combine with 12 or 24 hour elements to form 60 different minute hands. The hour elements in the latter set are shaped to effectively function as part of 2, 3, and 5 minute hands. One of the embodiments uses a combination of elements for each hour hand to provide a better shaped hand with a greater area.

Abstract: Optical displays for electronic watches or clocks use LED or LCD optical elements at the numbered positions on the watch or clock face to present time and other information from the electronic circuitry. Embodiments having 12 optical elements energize appropriate elements to show hour and 5 minute positions directly with time coding distinguishing between them. These embodiments also include apparatus to energize the optical elements in various time and space patterns to show the number of minutes the time is from the indicated five minute position. Another embodiment using six optical elements shows hour and 5 minute positions alternately by energizing two adjacent elements to indicate the intermediate positions. Still another embodiment uses four optical elements to show hour and 5 minute positions alternately with a special space and time code for other than quarterly positions, and further to show minute and second information on demand.

Abstract: An electronic watch providing optical and audible readouts, controlled by a number of predetermined pulse trains, each pulse of which being produced by the user's tapping or otherwise impacting a small electroacoustic transducer, which also provides the audible readout. A switch may be substituted for the transducer, thus foregoing audible readout capability. An easily learned coded series of tone bursts identifies the numbers in the audible time readout. The alarm capability, armed and disarmed by appropriate pulse trains, includes an alarm register which can be read out and set by appropriate pulse trains and, supplemented by an additional counter to form a duration register, serves as a stopwatch adapted not only for conventional timing of external events, but also for precision setting of the minute and second counters. An auxiliary register may hold month and date information to be read out and set in response to appropriate pulse trains.

Abstract: A keyboard apparatus for utilizing equipments, such as electronic musical instruments, computers, and other control and data handling devices, which responds to imposition of a flexible conductive element, such as the operator's finger, on a selected one of a plurality of areas to produce a representation for a character or function corresponding to the selected area. This apparatus consists of a plurality of conductors exposed in different combinations in different areas and a set of logic circuits which discriminately gate the conductors to utilizing equipment when proper combinations are energized. Several conductor arrangements with combinations all sharing one or more unique characteristics are disclosed, along with different logic systems responsive to the characteristics to assure that erroneous information will not be read in. Also disclosed is apparatus to produce an audible sound each time a read in is made and thereby indicate to the operator when the keyboard has responded.