Abstract: The telephone set comprises a base (27) which can be connected to a telephone line, and a handset (28) which includes speech circuits which are connected to the telephone line via the base. The telephone set further comprises a casing (17 or 28) which includes a picture sensor (31 or 1) producing a picture signal, and a screen (32 or 19) forming a viewfinder. The use of the casing is analogous to the use of a photo camera. The picture is digitized, then stored and transmitted to the base to be transmitted by facsimile.

Abstract: A part of the read-write memory of a digital signal processor, generally referred to as a DSP, is used for the storage of a software layer which acts as a control unit which reads instructions in an, if desired large, memory external to the DSP, and which controls their transfer to the program memory of the DSP, which transfer is effected instruction by instruction or at least instruction block by instruction block. Field of use: real-time digital computations, particularly in consumer products, such as telematics terminals.

Abstract: For saving memory space, the use of a sophisticated compressor is to be preferred to a simple reduction of the sampling frequency. However, for very high compression rates the total number of calculations is such that the compressor would no longer be capable of following the timing with which the samples arrive. Particularly in the case of a telephone/recorder where sound messages are received in separate call elements of limited duration, the invention consists of finally compressing once again samples that one has not been able to compress in real time at a sufficiently high compression rate.

Abstract: As a surface having an apparent grey level is obtained by activating a certain proportion of pixels of this surface, the screen is virtually divided into blocks of pixels all having the same dimensions and a set of patterns each representing a block is defined in advance for each desired apparent grey level, while the different patterns of one and the same set all have the same proportion of active pixels, for example two out of sixteen for a grey level of 2/16 in the scale ranging from white to black (20-27) but a different arrangement of inactive pixels and active pixels, and for the display of each pixel of the image a pattern of the set corresponding to the desired grey level is selected, and the pixel is displayed in the active or inactive state of the dot having the same position in the selected pattern. A different pattern (from 20 to 27) is chosen at each redefinition of an image.