Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Sigeaki Masuzawa

Akira Tanimoto

Shinya Shibata

Shinzo Nishizaki

Shintaro Hashimoto

Hiroshi Miyazaki

Tomohiro Inoue

Hiroshi Tsuda

Yoshiro Kihara

Mituhiro Saiji

Masahiro Nakano

Isamu Haneda

Hideo Yoshida

Kosuke Nishimura

Yutaka Ikemoto

Yoshinori Oogita

Tetsuo Iwase

Hisao Kunita

Mituhiro Saizi

Susumu Maetani

Minoru Makita

Tsuneo Kawabata

Akitomo Kiriyama

Shinya Sibata

Takao Maeda

A key-lock system and method for use in an IC card with a display portion and the like, which is so arranged to render input from a keyboard, to be in an inhibited state by detecting that a plurality of keys for the keyboard were depressed in a predetermined order, and also to render the inhibited state of input from the keyboard, to be in a released state by detecting that the plurality of keys of the keyboard were depressed in another predetermined order.

Key-lock system

A voice synthesis system includes the use of a group of representative sound data for synthesizing voice data. A ROM circuit in the system includes a multilevel address system that stores starting addresses of the representative sound data. The memory capacity required for storing the representative voice data synthesized is reduced by accessing nondistinguishable data through a multilevel address system.

ROM circuit for reducing sound data

A measuring instrument capable of providing its readouts of measurements of a physical quantity such as voltage, current or resistance includes voice synthesizer circuitry which may be realized by the use of a large scale integrated circuit (LSI) chip. A mode selector switch is provided for selection of an audible indication mode and a visual indication mode.

Digital volt-ohm meter with audible synthesis of measured values

Speech synthesis is improved by using normalized values of pitch and amplitude data to modify phoneme signals which are further processed by a quantizing noise filter which computes and interleaves the average value between adjacent samples.

Speech synthesis method and device

A synthetic-speech calculator includes a calculating circuit inclusive of a plurality of memory locations to allow successive or chain calculations by some calculations equations and calculating numerical data, and voice synthesizer for providing pronunciation of selected calculating information. The calculator further comprises a first circuit for loading the some calculation equations and the calculating numerical data to the selected memory locations, a second circuit for indicating or pronouncing the some calculation equations and the calculating numerical data which have been utilized for the calculation and stored in the memory locations, and a third circuit for repeating the calculation by the some calculation equations and the calculating numerical data all stored in the memory locations.

Playback operation circuit in synthetic-speech calculator

In a speech synthesizer, speech speed is selectable by a switch which selects the number of repetitions of a basic waveform or equivalent parameters thereof.

Speech synthesizer with variable speed of speech

A portable electronic language interpreter includes an alphabetical keyboard for entering a particular Japanese word therein using a system of alphabetized Japanese. A retrieval circuit is responsive to the alphabetical keyboard for causing access of a memory containing a plurality of translated English words equivalent to a plurality of Japanese words. A decoder is provided for converting the alphabetized Japanese word into a word in the Japanese 'Katakana' language equivalent thereto. A voice synthesizer is provided which generates an audible pronunciation of the input Japanese word. A display is connected to the alphabetical keyboard and the retrieval circuit and decoder for displaying the alphabetized Japanese word, the word represented in the Japanese 'Katakana' language, and the translated English word. In a specific form of the present invention, the memory contains at least one pair of translated English words both having a meaning identical to the input Japanese word. In another specific form of the present invention, a phonetic-symbol keyboard may be provided for entering a sequence of phonetic symbols indicating an English word.

Alphabetizing Japanese words in a portable electronic language

An audibly announcing apparatus capable of announcing updated time or results of arithmetic operations in the form of audible sounds or synthesized voices, for example, a talking clock and a talking calculator is provided with power saving circuitry. A detector is provided for detecting the operating state of the apparatus where audible sounds or synthesized voices are to be outputted. The power saving circuitry prevents power from being supplied to a voice generator consumes most of power dissipated by the apparatus, when it is not desired to output audible voices. The voice generator includes a central processing unit (CPU), a program read only memory (P-ROM) and a digital-to-analog converter.

Audibly announcing apparatus with power saving feature

A timer-announcer system stores instructions for generating various types of time information, e.g., sharp time (announced at a pre-set time); and updated real time (announcing the present time upon demand by a key actuation). The sounds may be simultaneously required, in which case logic circuits assign relative priorities for delivery of the instructions to the sound synthesizer.

Audibly announcing apparatus

An audible output device disclosed herein for use in electronic calculators or the like is able to distinguish between audible messages at the time of keying input information and at the time delivering output information reflecting results of operations, for example. The audibel output device relies upon a speech-synthesizer technique which can be implemented with a digital LSI device.

Data-related apparatus with a speech-synthesizer output device

An electronic translator which provides a translated word corresponding to an input word comprises at least one kind of input device for entering an input word and a plurality of output devices selectively actuated. Preferably, the input device consists of a voice-responsive circuit or a reader and the output devices comprise a voice synthesizer or a printer.

Simultaneous electronic translation device

A speech synthesis device is adapted to provide an audible indication of numerical information through the utilization of a predetermined number of phonemes. Those phonemes are stored within a read only memory on a single large scale integrated circuit chip. A desired length of pause or silence is provided depending upon the kind and location of information to be audibly outputted. The necessity for the pause period is stored in digitally encoded signals within the read only memory in the same manner as with the phonemes.

A display device disclosed herein includes a dot matrix type liquid crystal display panel capable of displaying not only digits but characters in the form of a matrix. Digit of character information is stored within a memory forming part of a CPU and shifted digit by digit or character by character while the display device is in operation. In other words, the digits or characters are shifting or running at each given length of time. The present device makes it possible of displaying numerals, characters, symbols and the like of a length more than the capacity of the display panel.

Display device for electronic calculator or the like

A synthetic speech calculator is provided which is capable of generating an audible sound signal which can be representative of keyed data, sequences of keyed data (and errors), processed data, the contents of a memory or the contents of a counter. The sound signal can be suppressed under certain specific circumstances or made soft in intensity. A synthetic-speech calculator includes the keyboard consisting of digit keys and function keys, a desired number of registers for storing information entered by the depression of selected ones of the digit keys, a read-only-memory for storing a large number of digital codes as sound quantizing information, counter means for specifying the address of the memory so as to take a specific digital code out of the memory, a digital-to-analog converter for converting the specific digital code taken out of the memory into an audible sound signal, and a loud speaker driven by the audible sound signal and producing an audible sound. There are provided means responsive to combinations of at least two sequentially operated keys of the keyboard for modifying the output condition of the audible sound, for example, volume, speed, etc. The synthetic speech calculator also has a selection key and multi-function keys, such as 7/sin.theta.. If the selection key is depressed followed by actuation of one of the multi-function keys, as audible sound indicative of the second function of the multi-function key is audibly generated, i.e., 'sin.theta.' is audibly generated. If the selection key is not depressed prior to actuation of the multi-function key, an audibly sound indicative of the first function (7) is audibly generated. Similarly, the calculator will also develop an audible sound indicative of 'EQUAL' if the following key sequence is actuated: a.times.b=, where a and b are numerals. The calculator will develop an audible sound indicative of 'TWO' if the following key sequence is actuated: a.times.=. An audible sound indicative of 'THREE' will be developed if the following key sequence is actuated: a.times.==.

Synthetic-speech calculators

A speech-synthesizer timepiece is adapted to produce audible sounds indicative of updated time information at a desired point in time through the use of the speech synthesizing technique. To avoid the user's failure to listen to the audible sounds or to avoid the user's error in dictating the audible sounds, an advance announcement is generated which includes a monotonous sound, a simple phrase or sentence. This advance announcement is provided when the audible sounds indicative of updated time is about to develop.

Growing community of inventors

Nara, Japan

Sigeaki Masuzawa