Scientific-atlanta, Inc.

Other

Scott L Hamilton

David J Naddor

Gregory S Durden

Randolph J Schaubs

Ray T Haman, Jr

Richard B Frederick

James O Farmer

Kinney Chapman Bacon

David B Lett

Michael P Harney

Jan L Christensen

Michael W Raley

Melvin Paulick

Ray T Haman

A removable basketball assembly includes a housing section securely mounted to a selected portion of the backboard and an anchor section removably positionable into the housing. A rim section is pivotally connected to the anchor section and extends outwardly therefrom. A mechanism for locking the anchor section with the housing section after the anchor section has been positioned therein is also included. The assembly further includes a mechanism for resiliently opposing downwardly forces exerted on the rim section such that a player can offset the rim section from the horizontal plane without permanently detaching the rim section from the anchor section. The housing section includes a rear wall provided with a plurality of holes for receiving a plurality of fastening members therethrough respectively. A protruding support compartment is integral with the rear wall and has a plurality of sidewalls and a front wall integrally connected for defining a cavity therebetween.

Removable basketball rim assembly

An auxiliary device control for a subscriber terminal includes a four wire ribbon cable defining a bidirectional communication and data interface from the terminal to one or more auxiliary devices. A communication and data protocol for the bidirectional transfer of instructions, status, and data over the interface includes an address field, command or reply field, data length field, and checksum field transmitted at 9600 baud. In a preferred implementation, the auxiliary device to be controlled is an IR peripheral controller which can tune a VCR, and switch it on and off. Several transactions in the communications and data protocol are used to effect the operation where a control VCR command and reply transaction cause the control of the tuning and recording of the VCR. A set-up VCR command and a brand reply transaction is used to provide information to configure the controller with brands and model of the VCRs. A program event code command and a program event timer reply transaction provide for the automatic recording of a program event based on an event code listed in a television schedule. A channel map command and a reply transaction provide for the downloading of the local cable system channel line up into the controller.

Auxiliary device control for a subscriber terminal

A data controller which manages the flow of text and electronic program guide (EPG) information to a cable television viewer. The data controller of the invention receives text and EPG information from one or a plurality of authorized data sources via a communications link, processes the received data in its internal database manager to perform data compression and the like, and then provides this text information to the viewer under control of the head end controller. In a preferred embodiment, the text data is formatted on a screen basis into transactions of a predetermined length and the EPG data is formatted on a program basis into transactions of the same length. The transaction are then inserted into the vertical blanking interval of a channel to which the corresponding text or electronic program data has been assigned. At the viewer's television tuner, the text data and/or EPG data is extracted from the vertical blanking interval and mapped to a virtual channel of the viewer's television tuner for display. The viewer's television tuner includes an EPG memory in which the EPG data may be stored to allow the viewer to scroll forward and backward through the stored EPG. The viewer's television tuner also includes a text memory for storing a page of text data so as to allow automatic pagination of the text data on the display screen after a predetermined amount of time has passed during which the viewer may read the text data.

Electronic program guide and text channel data controller

The invention also known as 'Disk-saver' employs a novel method of controlling the power to the hard disk drive of an electronic digital computer. A 'Terminate and Stay Resident' (TSR) program is executed in the electronic digital computer which provides the timing function to determine when the hard disk drive should be turned off. When the decision is reached to turn the power on or off, the TSR program generates an ultrasonic coded signal which is sent to a loudspeaker to which the disk-saver module of this invention is connected to monitor the ultrasonic coded signal. When the signal is generated the Disk-saver module of this invention turns the power to the disk drive on or off as directed by the coded ultrasonic signal.

Ultrasonic control disk drive system

An impulse pay-per-view system wherein a number of downloadable transactions may be utilized to effect increased control and diversity is disclosed. A preview time/free transaction permits a system subscriber to view portions of a pay-per-view event without purchasing the event. A security transaction sent while a pay-per-view event is active may be used to prevent a subscriber from receiving events which have not been purchased. A telephone number transaction may include a special character representing an instruction to pause between the dialing of selected digits. A viewer statistic transaction may be use dot instruct a subscriber to record the channel he is viewing. Finally, a subscriber may pre-buy pay-preview events in order to facilitate VCR recording of the events while he is asleep or away from home.

Set-top interface transactions in an impulse pay per view television

Apparatus for transmitting and receiving a period shift keyed data stream comprises a data processor such as a microprocessor which may control the generation of the waveform as well as the determination of the bit values of an incoming signal. When the data to be transmitted comprises a plurality of data values, each data value is represented by a different predetermined frequency. Further, each data value is represented by the transmission of the predetermined frequency for a predetermined transitionary interval plus one cycle or period. One portion of the transitionary interval precedes and the remaining portion follows the one cycle. For example, the data value may be represented by a three cycle burst of frequency such that, in determining the represented data value, two cycles of transitionary interval are detected but ignored and the central cycle of the three cycle burst is timed for determining the data value by edge detection techniques. Consequently, transitionary influences caused by changes in frequency do not adversely affect data value determination.

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Duluth, GA, United States of America

Scott L Hamilton