Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Osamu Zaitsu

Satoshi Kikuya

Makoto Okuda

Hiroshi Terada

Narito Shibaike

Seiko Minamide

Jiro Kajino

Mitsuo Utsumi

Akio Konishi

Hideaki Yoshio

Tatsuhiro Yabuki

Toshinori Morikawa

A tape cassette which includes a housing having an opening at the front portion of the housing in which opening loading posts are maneuvered, a pair of tape reels rotatably disposed in the housing, a slider slidably mounted by the housing and having a front portion located in the opening, and a front cover supported by both the slider and housing for covering the magnetic tape exposed to the outside, and shifting means for rotating the front cover in the direction in which the loading posts are entered into the opening, end sliding the front cover in such a direction that the front cover moves away from the magnetic tape so that in accordance with the movement of the slider in a direction that the front portion moves away from the magnetic tape, the magnetic tape is exposed to the outside.

Tape cassette

A tape cassette to be mounted on a magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus. A magnetic tape is extended in front of an opening formed at a front part of a housing. The housing is provided with a front cover for covering the tape. The tape is exposed by an upward rotation of the front cover. The front cover is upwardly rotated when a slider, which is slidably attached to the housing, is slid rearward with respect to the housing. The slider, which is in engagement with an engaging member, is slid by relative movement of the engaging member and the housing. The slider is locked to the housing by a locking member, which unlocks the slider when the engaging member is engaged with the slider.

Tape cassette including a locking slider

A magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus according to the present invention is constituted by a chassis on which a rotary head cylinder and a reel frame are provided; a cassette carrier for holding a tape cassette; and cassette carrier moving means for relatively moving/guiding the rotary head cylinder into the tape cassette in a state where the tape cassette is not engaged to the reel frame. The tape cassette and the reel frame are engaged to each other after the rotary head cylinder has been relatively moved/guided into the tape cassette. As a result, the depth of the apparatus can be reduced and as well as the thickness can also be reduced.

Cassette loading device for a magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus

Disclosed is a tape cassette for short-time recording having an interchangeability with a long-playing standard tape cassette. The short-time cassette has the external size and functions substantially the same as that of the standard tape cassette. The casing of the short-time tape cassette is provided with a large aperture the area of which is made larger than that of an aperture formed in the bottom of the standard tape cassette, owing to the reduction in the diameters of the reel flanges. With this arrangement, it is possible to accommodate the mechanism including the tape path within the outside dimensions of the tape cassette, thus allowing miniaturization of the mechanism of the apparatus which handles the tape. At the same time, a perfect interchangeability between the short-time tape cassette and the standard tape cassette is obtained, so that users can operate both types of the tape cassette on an identical player such as a VTR.

Short time recording tape cassette having a larger open space than that

A recording/reproducing apparatus comprising a tape winding device rotationally moving around a tape guide drum for pulling out a tape from a tape cassette and for wrapping the pulled-out tape on the tape guide drum. The tape guide drum advances into an opening portion of the tape cassette on tape loading, resulting in producing a moving space of the tape winding device, and the tape winding device is rotationally moved around the tape guide drum in the produced space between the tape guide drum and the casing section in response to the advancing movement of the tape guide drum. A casing section of the recording/reproducing apparatus and a member operatively associated with the casing section may either enter into the locus of the rotational movement of the tape winding device after the tape winding device is rotationally moved by a predetermined angle.

Arrangement of recording and/or reproducing apparatus

A tape loading device having a tape loading mechanism including a guide drum and other associated parts, the mechanism being movable with respect to the tape driving device on which the tape cassette is mounted. The guide drum is movable into the tape cassette beyond the opening formed in the tape cassette, so that the tape loading mechanism including the guide drum is housed within the outside dimension of the tape cassette, thus attaining a ultra-miniaturized mechanism.

Minature tape loading device

In the magnetic recording and playback apparatus of the invention, a cassette is mounted in parallel with a base plate. The apparatus has a tape path which is optimized for stable tape running and tape protection and having three inclined planes of different inclination directions and angles with respect to the plane of the base plate. A cylinder is arranged perpendicularly to the first inclined plane, while a first guide post and an eraser head are arranged perpendicularly to the third inclined plane. A capstan, sound/control head and a second guide post are arranged perpendicularly to the second inclined plane.

Magnetic recording and playback apparatus

A magnetic recording/playback device in which a tape mounting device for mounting a magnetic tape in a cassette on a magnetic head drum or demounting the tape from the magnetic head drum into the cassette and a mode switching driving device adapted for effecting a switching of operation mode such as recording, playback, rewinding and forwarding are driven by a single driving power source, in good sequence through a change of the load imposed by the tape mounting device and the mode switching driving device, to permit a reduction in size and weight of the recording/playback device.

Growing community of inventors

Neyagawa, Japan

Osamu Zaitsu