Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Nintend Co., Ltd.

Susumu Inoue

Kenichiro Ashida

Junji Takamoto

Fumiyoshi Suetake

Akio Ikeda

Kuniaki Ito

Yoshitomo Goto

Shin Sugiyama

Haruki Tojo

Masaki Sato

An elongated member such as a bar includes spaced-apart infrared light illumination ports at opposite ends thereof. Exemplary spacing between the two spaced-apart light ports may be 20 centimeters or more. Each light port comprises an array of plural light sources. The plural light sources in each array may be directionally aimed to as to provide different illumination directions. The plural light sources in each array may emit different colors or frequencies of light. Example applications include targeting or marking capabilities for a video game or other system handheld pointing device.

Methods and apparatus for using illumination marks for spatial pointing

In an input device, a controller for controlling an input portion and acquiring data is connected to a bus. The bus can be connected with an external expansion device via an expansion connector. The connection of the bus from the expansion connector to the controller is switched on and off by a switcher. Data acquired from a sensor having a function equivalent to that of the external expansion device is transmitted to the controller via the bus by a sensor controller which is connected to each of a side of the controller and a side of the expansion connector of the bus without interposing the switcher. The sensor controller switches the connection of the switcher off when an access to itself is made from the controller.

Input device

When setting (changing) a reception mode in a receiving unit, a CPUissues a reception mode command to the receiving unit. Having received the command, a serial interfacewrites the command to a command buffer. A protocol controlleranalyzes the command which has been written to the command bufferto determine whether the reception mode is a FIX mode or an UNFIX mode, and writes a corresponding status (a device ID, unique ID, mode, etc.) to a status memory. Then, when data is received from a transmission unit, the receiving unitrefers to the status which has been written to determine whether or not the received data is from a transmission system which has been set.

Information processing system

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Susumu Inoue