Personal digital assistant module adapted for initiating telephone communications through DTMF dialing

Abstract

A personal digital assistant module with a local CPU, memory, and I/O interface has a host interface comprising a bus connected to the local CPU and a connector at a surface of the personal digital assistant for interfacing to a bus connector of a host general-purpose computer, providing direct bus communication between the personal digital assistant and the host general-purpose computer. In an embodiment, the personal digital assistant also stores a security code. The personal digital assistant according to the invention forms a host/satellite combination with a host computer having a docking bay, wherein upon docking, a docking protocol controls access by the host to memory of the personal digital assistant based on one or more passwords provided by a user to the host. In another embodiment the personal digital assistant also has an expansion port connected to the local CPU, and expansion peripheral devices may be connected and operated through the expansion port. In yet another embodiment, an interface is provided via an interactive, menu-driven display and an on-board speaker to allow a user to select parties to be called, and to dial the parties, including credit card charge data, via DTMF tones generated by the on-board speaker.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.