Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Fuminari Saito

Hironori Honsho

Jirou Kajino

Hiroshi Kanchiku

Yoshiyuki Shimizu

Kazuya Ueda

Jiro Kajino

Nobuo Nakayama

Kenzi Nagamine

Tetsuro Tanaka

A tape cassette comprises a pair of reels fixedly holding leading and trailing ends of a tape; and a cassette case containing the pair of reels with a forwardly exposed portion of the tape being extended at the front of the case. An opening is provided inside a forward portion of the case, and left and right side walls are arranged in the cassette case for defining the opening. Two or more tape guides are arranged adjacent to left and right ends of the opening, respectively, for guiding the forwardly exposed portion of the tape. A front lid is pivotably supported by the cassette case for covering the front of the forwardly exposed portion of the tape when closed, and an inner lid is pivotably supported by the front lid for covering the back of the tape when closed. Guiding grooves are arranged in the left and right side walls, respectively, for controlling a pivotal movement of the inner lid. At least one of the tape guides is spaced by a distance L from the opening-side end of its corresponding left or right side wall which has a thickness of T, such that L&lt;T is established.

Tape cassette having front and inner pivotal lids

Tape cassette for cassette recording/reproducing apparatus

A tape cassette which protects the tape thereof from dust, and which can be accommodated in a small volume. This is achieved by providing both a front lid and an inner lid and by making a distance between a rotation axis of the cassette front lid and a cassette bottom surface greater than a distance between a surface of the tape stretched along the front of the cassette case and the rotation axis of the cassette front lid. In addition, a restriction plate is provided for restricting rearward movement of the tape stretched along the front of the cassette case.

Tape cassette with front and inner tape covering lids

A magnetic recording and/or reproducing apparatus has incorporated therein a tape cassette adapter which can house therein a small tape cassette and which has a mechanism for drawing out a magnetic tape from the small tape cassette to attain nearly the same tape travel path to that of a large tape cassette in order to load the magnetic tape on a tape drive mechanism. The tape cassette adapter can have a position that it will not interfere with the loading and unloading of the large tape cassette, a position where at least a part of the tape cassette adapter is projected outside from the apparatus so that the samll tape cassette can be housed into or removed from the adapter, and a position where the drawn-out magnetic tape is driven by a tape drive mechanism of the apparatus. Either the small or large tape cassette can be easily loaded on or unloaded from the apparatus.

Apparatus for selectively loading small or large tape cassettes

A hand-held scanner, namely, a hand-operated optical reader, capable of selectively and partially reading a necessary portion of a document. The hand-held scanner is equipped with a speed control device capable of producing a load for controlling the moving speed of the hand-operated scanning unit for approximate uniform motion to enable a compact and inexpensive apparatus to reproduce an original picture easily and accurately.

Hand-held scanner with a speed control device

A magnetic tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus provided with a reversible motor, a rotary member rotated by the motor, an operating mode changer connected to the rotary member to change the operating mode of the apparatus, a tape loader movable in reciprocation between an inoperative position where a magnetic tape can be drawn out from a cassette and an operative position where the tape is drawn out and then wound onto a guide drum, a drive driven intermittently by the rotary member to cause the tape loader to reciprocate between the inoperative and operative positions, and a lock for holding the drive when the tape loader is brought to the operative position. The motor is connected to a housing including therein a speed-reduction device so that the motor output is taken from the peripheral side surface of the motor to drive the rotary member. Thus, the apparatus is highly reliable, small-sized, low in power consumption, and light in weight.

Magnetic tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus

A small-sized and low-power magnetic tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus. A first idler is press-contacted with a driving roller provided coaxially with a capstan shaft for transporting a magnetic tape at a constant speed, the pressing force of the first idler being changed so as to obtain a driving force caused by friction according to the pressing force. The driving force of the first idler is transmitted to a relay wheel via a timing belt mounted on the first idler and the relay wheel, and to a reel drive turntable by a reel transmission mechanism. The reel transmission mechanism has a selective transmission mechanism which transmits the rotation of the relay wheel to a rotating wheel juxtaposed with the reel drive turntable and then to the reel drive turntable either directly or indirectly via a torque limiter provided on the rotating wheel.

Growing community of inventors

Kawanishi, Japan

Fuminari Saito