Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc.

Other

Mark S Aubuchon

Meera K Manahan

John C Barker

Jeffrey T Lininger

Paul Michael Pierce

Jeffery T Lininger

A hand-held TV/computer remote infrared control device has an elongated rectangular housing with a front longitudinal portion and a considerably shorter rear end portion which is downwardly and rearwardly inclined relative to the front portion and has a generally bulbous underside section which may be grasped from below by a control hand of a user, with the elongated front portion extending forwardly beyond the control hand. The device is stabilized against forward tipping in the user's hand by positioning somewhat more than half of the operating weight of the device in its rear end portion. Various control buttons are disposed on the top side of the front portion, and the downward tilt of the grasped rear end portion causes the front end portion to tip upwardly to make the control buttons easier to see by the user. A computer pointing structure, in the form of a track ball and two associated selection buttons, is disposed on the top side of the rear end portion, and an auxiliary computer selection button is disposed on the bottom side of the housing at the juncture of its front portion and rear end portion. The track ball and the two top side selection buttons are positioned to be used by the user's control hand thumb, and the auxiliary selection button is positioned to be used trigger-like by the control hand index finger.

Contoured and balanced remote tv control device

Keyboard

The elongated body portion of a lap-supportable remote infrared computer keyboard is contoured on its bottom side, by means of a spaced pair of arcuately shaped, generally parallel recesses that extend between front and rear sides of the body, to conform to upper side portions of a seated user's thighs. Positioned in the recesses are spaced series of elongated outwardly projecting parallel ribs which longitudinally extend transversely to the lengths of the recesses and serve to frictionally inhibit front-to-rear shifting of the lap-supported keyboard along the user's thighs. The key member portions of the keyboard are positioned on the top side of the body between left and right end portions thereof. On the top side of one of these end portions is a pointing device, representatively a track ball, and on the top side of the other end portion are a pair of selection buttons. This end-to-end separation of the pointing device and selection buttons permits the user to operate them while holding an end of the keyboard body in each hand, thereby substantially preventing the use of either the track ball or the selection buttons from tending to tip the keyboard either leftwardly or rightwardly on the user's lap.

Lap-supportable remote infrared computer keyboard

A computer system includes a chassis having a generally planar floor plate; a first generally planar motherboard having circuitry thereon mounted on the floor plate; at least one riser board connected to the first motherboard to extend generally orthogonally upwardly therefrom, the riser board having an upper edge oriented generally parallel to and above the plane of the first motherboard, and being provided with electrical circuit contacts along the upper edge; and a second generally planar motherboard connected to and at least partly supported by the riser board, the second motherboard being positioned adjacent the upper edge of the riser board, the second motherboard having circuitry thereon electrically connected to the electrical circuit contacts along the upper edge of the riser board.

Computer system with special circuit board arrangement

Growing community of inventors

Spring, TX, United States of America

Mark S Aubuchon