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US 3,944,042 AGranted
Syllabic typewriters and similar machines
OwnerJean Gremilletinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A syllabic keyboard and the devices through which its keys control different mechanisms and/or apparatus, for example : printers and/or other recording systems. The material structure of the keyboard, these devices and their arrangements have made possible different layouts of syllabic keyboards for different languages in which certain keys each control simultaneously up to five characters plus a spacing. Several character keys and spacing keys may be depressed simultaneously.
Claims11
A syllabic-keyboard controlled device, in which the keyboard comprises :
- a plurality of keys (FIGS. 7 and 8) which can be simultaneously depressed and which are arranged in rows and columns, certain of said keys simultaneously controlling a plurality of characters belonging to character groups which each correspond to a distinct printing point;
- certain of said keys which each control simultaneously a character of a first character group an a character of second character group being disposed and arranged in a matrix;
- a central key in certain rows of keys controlling only the vowel of the second character group which corresponds to the other keys of the matrix in the same row;
- the keyboard comprising the following improvements:
- in several rows of the matrix, two keys adjacent the central key control a character of a third character group which is the same for the two keys;
- two space keys the width of which is about that of two columns of the matrix and the length of which is at least equal to that of three rows of the matrix;
- said space keys being disposed forwardly of said matrix and being spaced laterally from one another on opposite sides of the center of the keyboard and three sets of thumb-operated keys which are elongate in the sense of the rows of the matrix, the width of said thumb-operated keys being approximately twice that of a matrix key, each of said sets comprising three keys situated respectively in three rows, one set of three keys being between the two space keys, a second set to the left of the left space key, and the third set at the right of the right space key, all of these thumb-operated keys adjacent to the space keys being in the same plane as said space keys, so that a thumb of an operator can depress each of these thumb-operated keys, either alone or at the same time as an adjacent space key.
4 more elements
A syllabic keyboard controlled device (FIGS. 5a-5c), the keyboard of which comprises a plurality of character keys arranged in rows and columns, certain of said keys each controlling a plurality of characters belonging to different character groups which each correspond to a distinct printing point;
- certain keys being disposed and arranged in a matrix comprising several rows and several columns, the device comprising the following improvements:
- the character keys are each mounted on a vertically displaceable rod (FIG. 3) the lower end of which has an upper knife edge (724) and a lower knife edge (725),
- the upper knife edges, in rest position, are situated in angular notches (730) of a fixed plate (729 FIGS. 4, 5),
- the lower knife edges, in rest position, are each situated in angular notches (752) of parts that the corresponding key controls, certain keys each controlling up to three characters,
- the lower knife edges corresponding to keys belonging to the matrix in a given column overlie an articulated parallelogram (FIGS. 4 and 5b) which corresponds to this column and which each knife edge can control separately,
- each of these articulated parallelograms comprises two bell-crank levers (762, 763), the upper horizontal end portions of which are linked by an upper connecting rod formed with angular notches in which the lower knife edges engage;
- and lower end portions are linked by a lower connecting rod, so that the upper connecting rod can only move parallel to itself,
- the keyboard further including a transverse countermotion device (748, 760 FIG. 5) for each row of the matrix, the lower knife edges corresponding to keys situated in this row overlying and acting on the transverse countermotion device at the same time as on one of the articulated parallelograms, so that each key of the matrix controls simultaneously the printing of a character which corresponds to several keys of the column of keys and of a character which corresponds to several keys of the row,
- the axes of the transverse countermotion devices being in the same plane as the fixed axes of the articulated parallelograms.
6 more elements
A keyboard controlled device comprising:
- a syllabic-keyboard comprising electric switches and a space key and character keys certain of which can be depressed simultaneously;
- the device comprising a spacing device and type-bars belonging to different character groups which each correspond to a distinct printing point, electromagnets each of which engages a transmission element with a motor element, some of said transmitting elements transmitting movement to type bars and others to the spacing device, the device comprising the following improvements:
- several of these electromagnets are connected with the same keyboard switch (FIGS. 7, 8, 11, 10), so that depression of a single key controls simultaneously the printing of up to five characters plus an automatic space, certain of these electromagnets being each connected to several keyboard switches, so that several switches each control the printing of the same character.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.