Mobile electronic equipment
AssigneeNEC Corporation
InventorMasahide Yoshikawa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In an mobile electronic equipment in which an upper cabinet is openably and closably coupled with a lower cabinet, cutout portions from which a track ball is exposed are formed to the coupling portions of the upper and lower cabinets, and the track ball is interposed between a pair of hinge mechanisms for connecting both the cabinets to each other. With this arrangement, since the track ball is exposed in any of the opened state and the closed state of the mobile electronic equipment, a user can manipulate the track ball in any of the opened state and the closed state. Accordingly, there can be overcome the disadvantageous operability of a conventional folding type mobile electronic equipment, which has a track ball as a pointing device, in that a job for opening the equipment is required to manipulate the track ball.
Claims13
A mobile electronic equipment comprising:
- an upper cabinet having an inside surface, an outside surface opposite to said inside surface, and an end, and having a display mechanism;
- a hinge mechanism connected to the end of the upper cabinet;
- a lower cabinet having an inside surface, an outside surface opposite said inside surface, and an end connected to said hinge mechanism to provide pivotable movement of said lower cabinet relative to said upper cabinet, from a closed state at which the inside surface of the lower cabinet faces against the inside surface of the upper cabinet to an open state, and having a manipulation mechanism;
- means for rotatably supporting a trackball in relation to said upper cabinet, said lower cabinet and said hinge mechanism, said means having surfaces for contacting a trackball;
- a track ball supported by said means for rotatably supporting a trackball to have an exposed surface when said upper and lower cabinets are in the opened state and in the closed state;
- means for detecting the rotation angles of the track ball;
- means for calculating the moving direction and the amounts of movement of an image on the display mechanism based on the detected rotation angles;
- and
- means for changing the image on the display mechanism based on the calculated moving direction and amounts of movement,
- wherein said lower cabinet, said means for rotatably supporting a trackball and said trackball are arranged to provide, when the upper cabinet and the lower cabinet are in the open state, an exposed surface area of said trackball located above the inside surface of the lower cabinet and, concurrently, an exposed surface area of said trackball located under the outside surface of the lower cabinet.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.