Telephone answering apparatus for indicating the presence of a power cycle
Assignee3Com Corporation
InventorMilos Brablec
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A telephone answering apparatus for indicating the presence of a power-cycle includes a memory device which stores a retrieved message and a value from a clock, and a controller operatively connected to the memory device and to the clock. The controller initializes the value of the clock to a power-up value upon receiving power from a source and the power-up value is stored along with the retrieved message in the memory device. A user may retrieve the stored power-up value along with the message into an application that is running on a host computer which will indicate that no time was recorded for the retrieved message.
Claims20
A telephone answering apparatus for indicating the presence of a power cycle comprising:
- a memory device and a clock having a plurality of operating modes, the clock including a plurality of clock values associated with the plurality of operating modes, wherein the memory device stores a received message and at least one of the plurality of clock values from the clock;
- and
- a controller operatively connected to the memory device and to the clock, wherein the controller initializes the at least one of the plurality of clock values to a power-up value upon receiving power from a source and stores the power-up value along with a stored message in the memory device and wherein the power-up value of the clock is different from any of the plurality of clock values associated with the plurality of operating modes.
A method of operating a telephone answering apparatus for indicating the presence of a power cycle comprising:
- providing a processor operatively connected to a controller, audio receiver, timer and clock having a plurality of operating modes, the clock including a plurality of clock values associated with the plurality of operating modes, the controller operatively connected to a memory device and an application interface;
- supplying power to the processor;
- initializing the clock to a power-up value that is different from any of the plurality of clock values associated with the plurality of operating modes;
- receiving a message on the audio receiver while the clock is set to the power-up value, and
- storing the message and the power-up value in the memory device.
A method of indicating the presence of a power cycle on a time-stamped recorded message comprising:
- providing a clock having a plurality of operating modes, the clock including a plurality of clock values associated with the plurality of operating modes;
- powering up a processor;
- initializing a clock to a power-up value that is different from any of the plurality of clock values associated with the plurality of operating modes;
- receiving a message, and
- storing the message and the power-up value to a memory device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.