US 5,633,920 A · Smart phone

Abstract

A business telephone system employs digital signal processing in a digital telephone having a serial link for connection to a general-purpose computer. The Smart Phone is thus the central intelligence for the system, which may utilize a PBX connected in a LAN network to multiple computers, including file servers, and each computer may have one or more Smart Phones connected. In one embodiment, docking bays in the phone provide an ability to interchange functional modules, including DSP modules. The docking bays and functional modules may be configured to PCMCIA standards. In another embodiment, a docking bay, which may also be PCMCIA, has a physical window allowing access to an input area on a docked module, wherein the docked module is an intelligent module with a CPU, memory, and a bus structure, affording control of the smart phone and the entire system through the input interface of the docked module.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A digital telephone comprising:

control circuitry for managing operations of the digital telephone;
a microphone-speaker unit connected to the control circuitry for audio input and output, including a coder/decoder (CODEC) for conversions between analog and digital data forms;
a user input interface connected to the control circuitry for dialing and function selection;
a telephone line port coupled to the control circuitry, for connecting the digital telephone to a telephone line;
a serial communication port coupled to the control circuitry for providing communication with external digital equipment;
a hand-held computer unit having a bus connector interface and a touch-screen input/display interface implemented on one surface;
and
at least one docking bay coupled to the control circuitry and adapted for docking the hand-held computer, the at least one docking bay having a physical window allowing a user access to the touch-screen input/display interface of the hand-held computer in docked position.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Smart phone

Life of this patent

Smart phone

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims24