Handheld facsimile and alphanumeric message transceiver operating over telephone or wireless networks

A portable hand held message transmitter for use in selecting a destination device from a plurality of destination devices, said selected device capable of receiving synthesized waveforms over a switched network, said portable hand held message transmitter comprising:

• input means for receiving alphanumeric characters and commands from a user and for generating signals indicative thereof;
• display means for displaying characters indicative of signals provided thereto;
• destination selection means responsive to signals generated by the input means for selecting the destination device from among the plurality of destination devices, for establishing a transmission path in the switched network, and for determining a data type for the selected destination device, said data type being one of at least two predetermined data types;
• message holding means responsive to signals generated by the input means for holding words of binary data indicative of a message from the user, each word associated with a particular character in the message;
• waveform synthesis means responsive to a first one of the at least two predetermined data types, for deriving pixel-map data indicative of rows of the perceived shape of the characters associated with the words of binary data, for producing bit streams indicative of the pixel-map data and for synthesizing differential phase-shift key waveforms corresponding to the bit streams by controlling a differential phase-shift key waveform generator for transmission to a first device type capable of recognizing said differential phase-shift key waveforms,
• said differential phase-shift key waveform generator comprising
• sinusoidal generation means responsive to a predetermined command generated by the input means for scanning a table having a predetermined number of equally spaced apart entries corresponding to different amplitudes values of a sinusoidal wave with an index pointer, the amplitude of the established signal selected resulting from the scanning of different table entries by the index pointer, thereby generating a sinusoidal carrier frequency,
• phase shift means responsive to the contents of the bit stream for changing the index pointer sufficiently to change the phase of the sinusoidal signal delivered to the selected destination;
• said waveform synthesis means further responsive to the said data type being a second one of the at least two predetermined data types, for deriving and queuing binary-coded signals associated with the words of binary data, for providing the signals in nibbles composed of fewer bits than the number of bits in the binary-coded signals, and for synthesizing dual-tone multifrequency waveforms indicative of the nibbles, whereby the waveforms may be received by a second device type from said plurality of destination devices, which is capable of recognizing said synthesized dual tone multi-frequency waveforms;
• and
• coupling means for coupling said synthesized waveforms to a transmission line.

A transmitter for communicating characters comprising:

• input means for receiving characters from a user and for generating corresponding binary-coded character signals indicative of the received characters, said character signals comprising a number of bits sufficient to permit a unique signal for each character receivable by the input means;
• lookup means with respect to a lookup table having a plurality of rows associated with binary-coded row numbers and two column-pairs associated with a plurality of respective groups, each column-pair comprising two columns each associated with one case of an upper case and a lower case, wherein the intersections of ones of the plurality of rows and ones of the two columns are associated with ones of the character signals, said lookup means responsive to ones of the character signals indicative of the received characters for determining the row and column associated therewith, for determining the binary-coded row number associated with the row, and for determining the case and group associated with the column;
• group encoding means having an initial group state and an initial case state, said group encoding means responsive to receipt of an one of the character signals indicative of the received characters for providing the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters to the lookup means and receiving the group and case and binary-coded row number associated with the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters, said group encoding means further responsive to receipt of the group associated with the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters for comparing said group with the previous group state and generating a change-of-group signal in the event of a difference therebetween, said group encoding means further responsive to receipt of the case associated with the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters for comparing said case with the previous case state and generating a change-of-case signal in the event of a difference therebetween, and for generating a row signal associated with the binary-coded row number, the change-of-case and change-of-group signals having the same number of bits as the binary-coded row numbers,
• queuing means for receiving and queuing the generated signals and for providing the signals in nibbles composed of fewer bits than the number of bits in the binary-coded row numbers, and
• analog means for receiving the nibbles, for producing analog signals indicative thereof, and for coupling said analog signals to a communication channel.

A transmitter for communicating characters comprising:

• input means for receiving characters from a user and for generating corresponding binary-coded character signals indicative of the received characters, said character signals comprising a number of bits sufficient to permit a unique signal for each character receivable by the input means and to be indicative of a character case associated with each of the received characters;
• lookup means with respect to a lookup table having a binary bit representation for selected character signals, wherein the binary bit representation provides relatively shorter unique binary bit representation for frequently used characters and relatively longer binary bit representations for less frequently used characters;
• group encoding means having an initial previous character case state, said group encoding means responsive to receipt of an one of the character signals indicative of the received characters for providing the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters to the lookup means and receiving the binary bit representation associated with the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters, said group encoding means further responsive to receipt of the binary bit representation associated with the one of the character signals indicative of the received characters for comparing the character case of the character signals indicative of the received characters with the previous character case state of the group encoding means and generating a change-of-case signal and an update previous character case state signal in the event of a different therebetween,
• queuing means for receiving and queuing the generated binary bit representations and for providing the representations in nibbles composed of different number bits than the number of bits in the Huffman binary bit representation, and
• analog means for receiving the nibbles, for producing analog signals indicative thereof, and for coupling said analog signals to a communication channel.

A portable hand held transmitter for communicating characters according to one of a plurality of encoding schemes, said transmitter comprising:

• input means for receiving characters from a user and for generating corresponding binary-coded signals indicative of the received characters, said binary-coded character signals comprising a number of bits sufficient to permit a unique signal for each character receivable by the input means;
• lookup means for generating at least one corresponding binary bit representation for each of the binary-coded character signals generated by the input means, said lookup means including a lookup table including a plurality of binary bit representations for a select group of characters receivable by the input means wherein one of said plurality of binary bit representations includes a four bit binary representation for each of the select group of characters receivable by the input means
• group encoding means responsive to receipt of the binary coded character signals from the input means for determining which of the plurality of encoding schemes to transmit the received characters from the input means, for providing the received binary coded character signals to the lookup means and for receiving the corresponding binary bit representations from the lookup means for the binary coded character signals received;
• and
• analog means for receiving the binary bit representations from the group encoding means, for producing analog signals indicative thereof, and for coupling said analog signals to a communication channel.

A portable hand held message transmitter for use in selecting a destination device from a plurality of destination devices, said selected device are capable of receiving synthesized waveforms over a switched network, said portable hand held message transmitter comprising:

• input means for receiving alphanumeric characters and commands from a user and for generating signals indicative thereof;
• display means for displaying characters indicative of signals provided thereto;
• destination selection means responsive to signals generated by the input means for selecting the destination device from said plurality of destination devices, for establishing a transmission path in the switched network, and for determining a data type for the selected destination device, said data type being one of at least two predetermined data types;
• message holding means responsive to signals generated by the input means for holding words of binary data indicative of a message from the user, each word associated with a particular character in the message;
• waveform synthesis means responsive to the data type being a first one of the at least two predetermined data types, for deriving pixel-map data indicative of rows of the perceived shape of the characters associated with the words of binary data, for producing bit streams indicative of the pixel-map data, and for synthesizing differential phase-shift key waveforms corresponding to the bit streams, whereby the waveforms may be received by a first device type capable of recognizing said differential phase-shift key waveforms;
• said waveform synthesis means further responsive to the said data type being a second one of the at least two predetermined data types, for queuing the words of binary data, for generating a serial bit stream of the words of binary data, and for synthesizing frequency-shift keyed signals indicative of the bit stream whereby the waveforms may be received by a second device type which is capable of recognizing said synthesized frequency-shift keyed signals;
• and
• coupling means for coupling said synthesized waveforms to a transmission line.

A portable message transmitter for use in selecting a destination device from a plurality of destination devices, said selected device capable of receiving synthesized waveforms over a switched network, said portable hand held message transmitter comprising:

• input means for receiving alphanumeric characters and commands from a user and for generating signals indicative thereof;
• display means for displaying characters indicative of signals provided thereto;
• destination selection means responsive to signals generated by the input means for selecting the destination device from among a plurality of destination devices, for establishing a transmission path in the switched network, and for determining a data type for the selected destination, said data type being one of at least two predetermined data types;
• message holding means responsive to signals generated by the input means for holding words of binary data indicative of a message from the user, each word associated with a particular character in the message;
• waveform synthesis means responsive to the data type being a first one of the at least two predetermined data types, said waveform synthesis means responsive to the destination selection means for deriving pixel-map data indicative of rows of the perceived shape of the characters associated with the words of binary data, for producing bit streams indicative of the pixel-map data, and for synthesizing differential phase-shift key waveforms corresponding to the bit streams by controlling a differential phase-shift key waveform generator, said differential phase-shift key waveform generator comprising
• sinusoidal generation means responsive to a predetermined command generated by the input means for scanning a table having a predetermined number of equally spaced apart entries corresponding to different amplitudes values of a sinusoidal wave with an index pointer, the amplitude of the established signal selected resulting from the scanning of different table entries by the index pointer, thereby generating a sinusoidal carrier frequency,
• phase shift means responsive to the contents of the bit stream for changing the index pointer sufficiently to change the phase of the sinusoidal signal delivered to the selected destination;
• and coupling means for coupling said synthesized waveforms to a transmission line,
• whereby the waveforms may be received a first device type from said plurality of destination devices capable of recognizing said differential phase-shift key waveforms;
• said waveform synthesis means further responsive to the said data type being a second one of the at least two predetermined data types, for queuing the words of binary data, for generating a serial bit stream of the words of binary data, and for synthesizing frequency-shift keyed signals indicative of the bit stream;
• and
• coupling means for coupling said synthesized waveforms to a transmission line.

A message receiver for receiving alphanumeric characters from message transmitter over a communication channel, said message transmitter providing analog output signals representing nibbles of a binary representation of characters in an alphanumeric message, said message receiver comprising:

• input means responsive to reception of analog signals from the message transmitter for receiving the analog signals over the communication channel and for converting the analog signals to binary bit nibbles;
• queuing means responsive to reception of the binary bit nibbles for queuing the binary bit nibbles as a serial binary bit stream and for converting the serial binary bit stream to binary coded row numbers, each of the binary coded row numbers comprising a predetermined number of bits from said serial binary bit stream;
• lookup means having an initial case state and an initial group state with respect to a lookup table having a plurality of rows associated with binary-coded row numbers and two column-pairs associated with a plurality of respective groups, each column-pair comprising two columns each associated with one case of an upper case and a lower case, wherein the intersections of ones of the plurality of rows and ones to the two columns are associated with ones of character signals in a preselected case of a preselected group, said lookup means responsive to the receipt of a binary coded row number for selecting the intersection of the row associated with the binary coded row number and said preselected case of said preselected group, said preselected case of said preselected group initially corresponding to the initial case state and initial group state, said lookup means further responsive to the receipt of a change-case signal from the selected intersection for changing the preselected case for subsequent selection of intersections, said lookup means further responsive to receipt of a change-group signal from the selected intersection for changing the preselected group for subsequent selection of intersections;
• and
• character output means responsive to the receipt a character signal from the intersection of selected rows and columns in the lookup means for converting said character signals to user accessible representations.

A message receiver for receiving alphanumeric characters from message transmitter over a communication channel, said message transmitter providing analog output signals representing nibbles of a binary representation of characters in an alphanumeric message, said message receiver comprising:

• input means responsive to reception of analog signals from the message transmitter for receiving the analog signals over the communication channel and for converting the analog signals to binary bit nibbles;
• queuing means responsive to reception of the binary bit nibbles for queuing the binary bit nibbles as a serial binary bit stream;
• lookup means with respect to a plurality of lookup tables having binary bit representations for respective selected character signals, wherein the binary bit representation in at least one of said plurality of lookup tables provides relatively shorter unique binary bit representation for frequently used characters and relatively longer binary bit representations for less frequently used characters, the binary bit representation being no shorter than a predetermined shortest length and no longer than a predetermined greatest length, said lookup means comprising means to receive binary bit nibbles from the queuing means for selecting one of the plurality of lookup tables for evaluating a series of binary bit data and for receiving a sequence of binary bit nibbles of a length corresponding to the shortest unique binary bit representation within the selected one of the plurality of lookup tables, said lookup means further comprising first means for determining whether the sequence of bits matches that of one of the binary bit representation of a length equal to that of the sequence of bits within the selected lookup table, and for generating the character signal corresponding to the matching bit representation, said lookup means further comprising second means responsive to the absence of a match and the selection of one of the plurality of lookup tables which provides for relatively shorter unique binary bit representation for frequently used characters and relatively longer binary bit representation for less frequently used characters for receiving from the queuing means and for appending at least one additional bit to the sequence of bits, said sequence of bits being provided to the first means;
• and
• character output means responsive to the receipt of a character signal from the lookup mans for converting said character signals to user accessible representations.