The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 17, 2000
Filed:
Aug. 04, 1997
Larry D Bailey, Stevensville, MI (US);
Rodman S Brahman, St. Joseph, MI (US);
Peter A Ojeda, Mundelein, IL (US);
William C Hallowell, Spring, TX (US);
Larry L Jeffery, St. Joseph, MI (US);
Upal Sengupta, Oregon, WI (US);
Norman D Stobert, Spring, TX (US);
Robert R Turnbull, Buchanan, MI (US);
Russell S Uithoven, Columbus, IN (US);
John P Wagner, Round Rock, TX (US);
Bruce Wang, Livonia, MI (US);
NEC Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An external flexible bay system includes an external flexible bay, a modular battery pack and a modular disk drive. The external flexible bay is adapted to receive either the modular battery pack or the modular disk drive to facilitate use of such devices with a portable PC. The external flexible bay includes a parallel port which enables an external I/O device, such as a printer, to be connected thereto. The external flexible bay contains circuitry to automatically sense whether a printer is connected and to determine whether a modular battery pack or modular disk drive has been inserted therein. In order to ensure proper configuration, the external flexible bay includes a mode switch for selecting between a floppy mode and a printer mode.