Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Kinya Morinouchi

Shigeru Kitano

Yutaka Iizuka

When the contents of a flash ROM which is an electrically rewritable nonvolatile memory are rewritten, after an IPL program for rewriting stored in the flash ROM is transferred to a RAM, mapping of memory space is switched by a switching control circuit. The IPL program transferred to the RAM is protected. The contents of the flash ROM are erased by use of the IPL program, and an updated program supplied through an RS-232C interface is written into the flash ROM. When a bug is caused due to static electricity in the IPL program stored in the flash ROM, an EPROM which is a nonvolatile memory element is attached, an IPL program stored in the EPROM is executed, and the IPL program stored in the EPROM is directly transferred to the flash ROM.

Computer apparatus having electrically rewritable nonvolatile memory,

A card reader control system includes a measuring device which measures a time interval of a clock signal which is developed from a card reader when a card is manually driven to travel in the card reader. The card reader control system stores the maximum time interval and the minimum time interval of the clock signal measured by the measuring device. When either one or both of the maximum time interval and the minimum time interval is not included in a preferred range, an alarm buzzer is enabled to indicate that the card speed is not suited for the reading operation.

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Nara, Japan

Kinya Morinouchi