US 4,266,102 AGranted

Automatic dialing device

AssigneeCard-O-Matic Pty. Limited

InventorsLouis Stanley, Robert E. Sinclair

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Abstract

The present invention discloses an automatic telephone dialling device which is able to read a telephone number encoded on a business card, credit card, or similar flat object, store the number in a memory, and generate telephone dialling pulses in accordance with the stored memory. In the preferred embodiment, a second memory and a keyboard are provided so that a telephone number may be entered into the second memory via the keyboard, either the card entered telephone number or the keyboard entered telephone number being able to be repeatedly dialled on demand. In addition, a telephone call re-directing apparatus including the automatic telephone dialling apparatus, is disclosed in which an incoming call to an unattended telephone may be redirected via a second telephone to a predetermined telephone number.

An automatic telephone dialing apparatus comprising card reading means to serially read each digit of an encoded telephone number from an elongated business card, credit card, or similar flat object, said card having a width between a minimum and a maximum predetermined dimension, a variable length of at least a predetermined minimum dimension, and a minimum stiffness insufficient to prevent transverse buckling of said card under longitudinal stress, a card entered memory connected to said card reading means to sequentially receive therefrom at a ramdon rate, and store, each said digit, and a dial pulse generating circuit connected to said memory to generate at a predetermined rate a telephone dialing pulse train in accordance with the numerical value of each of the digits stored in said memory, wherein each said digit is encoded on said card as one or more holes therein, each located at a corresponding spaced location along a line transverse to the longitudinal axis of said card, the location of said holes representing the numerical value of each said digit and being at predetermined distances from one edge of said card, said minimum predetermined card width being directly determined by the maximum number of holes used to encode any digit and the spacing of said holes, the spacing between said lines being random along the length of the card starting from a first end of the card with no line being more than the minimum predetermined card length dimension from said first end;

said card reading means comprising a plurality of spaced light sources, and a corresponding plurality of light sensitive devices in a slot, each of said light sensitive devices being arranged to receive light from the corresponding light source, said card being manually insertable, said first end first, in said slot at any random or variable speed between said light sources and said light sensitive devices, the spacing of said light sources and said light sensitive devices permitting light to be received by said devices only via said holes in said card, and
wherein said maximum predetermined card width is determined by the width of said slot and said minimum predetermined card length is determined by the depth of said slot.

Abstract

Claims7