JPH0457273A - Memory device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to use recording media having different sizes by making the connection system of plural kinds of driving devices with information processing equipments in the respective devices for the recording media having different sizes in common. CONSTITUTION:The driving devices A-C are provided with slots A-C corresponding to the memory media (optical memories) A-C having large, medium and small sizes so as to insert and take out the memory media A-C. Connectors (interfaces) are respectively provided on the back surfaces of the devices A-C on an opposite side to the slots A-C. The connectors are used to electrically connect to the information processing equipments where the connectors are mounted. The slots A and C provided in the devices A and C correspond to the media A and C and the sizes thereof are formed in the same dimension as the device A. Therefore, the devices B and C can be connected to the information processing equipment to which the device A can be connected in the same manner. Then, an interface circuit which makes access by a microprocessor having different specification or machine type possible is provided in the devices A-C.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a memory device, and relates to a technique that is effective for use in a memory device that uses replaceable storage media of multiple types of different sizes, for example. .

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, various information devices such as workstations, personal computers, and word processors have been utilized in various fields. A floppy disk device is an external memory device used in these information devices. Regarding such a floppy disk device, there is, for example, "Microcomputer Handbook" published by Ohmsha, December 25, 1985, pages 422 to 426.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Floppy disks are widely used in sizes of 8 inches, 5 inches, and 3.5 inches. Because of these different sizes, for example, documents created using a 5-inch floppy disk can be written in 3.
Editing cannot be done using a word processor using a 5-inch floppy disk. Therefore, some high-end information devices are equipped with a function that allows connection of two types of floppy disk devices, for example, 5 inch and 3.5 inch. However, in order to actually support both floppy disks as described above, it is necessary to add a dedicated drive device compatible with one floppy disk as an option.
Problems arise in terms of desk space and cost.

An object of the present invention is to provide a novel memory device that uses replaceable storage media of multiple types with different sizes and is compatible with information processing equipment that uses the storage media.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[Means to solve the problem]

A brief overview of typical inventions disclosed in this application is as follows.

That is, at least a plurality of types of drive devices are provided that perform memory access to the storage medium in a one-to-one correspondence with each of the plurality of types of replaceable storage media of different sizes, and a plurality of types of drive devices are provided. Standardize the connection format for each information processing device.

[For production]

According to the above means, by replacing the entire drive device in one information processing device, it becomes possible to use storage media of different sizes.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 shows a schematic perspective view of one embodiment of a replaceable memory medium used in a memory device according to the present invention.

In this embodiment, three types of memory media A to C are prepared. That is, memory medium A is
Its size is the largest, and its storage capacity is correspondingly the largest. Memory medium B is intermediate in size and correspondingly intermediate in storage capacity. The memory medium C has the smallest size, and its storage capacity is made smaller accordingly. In this way, these replaceable memory media A to C have different storage capacities depending on their sizes. These memory media C are constructed in a thin card-like shape, and are easy to handle.

Although not particularly limited, an optical disk as described below is used as the memory medium.

2A to 2C are schematic perspective views of one embodiment of each of the above-mentioned memory media and a drive device corresponding thereto.

In FIG. 2A, the drive device A has a slot A corresponding to the largest size memo '1' medium A, and the memory medium A is inserted and taken out. When the memory medium A uses an optical disk as described above, the drive device A has a disk drive function as described later, performs memory access such as recording/erasing and playback, and also has a thickness. It is constructed relatively thin and is shaped like a cassette. Although not particularly limited, a connector is provided on the back surface of the drive device A on the opposite side from the slot A. This connector is used to make an electrical connection with the information processing device on which it is mounted. Furthermore, in the case of realizing memory access to information devices with different recording formats, an interface corresponding to each information device is provided in the connector portion.

That is, even when using the memory medium A of the same size, an interface circuit is provided that allows access by microprocessors of different specifications and models. Therefore, even if the drive device is compatible with the memory medium A of the same size, drive devices having different interfaces are prepared depending on the specifications and model of the microprocessor to which it is connected.

In FIG. 2B, drive device B has a slot B corresponding to an intermediate-sized memory medium B, and a drive device B has a slot B corresponding to an intermediate size memory medium B.
is inserted and removed. If the memory medium B uses an optical disk as described above, the drive device B also has a disk drive function as described later, and performs memory access such as recording/erasing and playback. It is constructed relatively thin and is shaped like a cassette.

In this case, slot B provided in drive device B is
Although it corresponds to the medium-sized memory medium B, its size is formed to be the same as the drive device A for the above-mentioned memory medium. Therefore, similarly to the above, a connector similar to the above is provided on the back surface of the drive device B on the opposite side from the slot B. Therefore, for an information processing device to which the drive device A can be connected, the drive device [B] can also be connected in the same way. Furthermore, in the case of realizing memory access to information devices with different recording formats, interfaces corresponding to the respective information devices are provided in the connector portion as described above. That is, even when using the memory medium B of the same size, an interface circuit is provided that allows access by microprocessors of different specifications and models.

In FIG. 2C, the drive device C has a slot C corresponding to the smallest size memory medium C, and the memory medium C is inserted and removed. Drive device C
Also, when the memory medium C uses an optical disk as described above, it has a disk drive function as described later,
It performs memory access such as recording/erasing and reproducing, and is constructed to be relatively thin and shaped into a cassette. In this case, the slot C provided in the drive device C corresponds to the medium-sized memory medium C, but its size is the same as that of the drive device WA-1PB corresponding to the memory medium A'PB. be done. Therefore, similarly to the above, a connector similar to the above is provided on the back surface of the drive unit Hc opposite to the slot C. Therefore, drive device C can also be connected to information processing equipment to which drive devices A and B can be connected.

Furthermore, in the case of realizing memory access to information devices with different recording formats, interfaces corresponding to the respective information devices are provided in the connector portion as described above. That is, even when using the memory medium C of the same size, an interface circuit is provided that allows access by microprocessors of different specifications and models.

As the replaceable memory medium as described above, an optical disk as described below can be used. The optical disk and its drive device suitable for the present invention are described in detail in the specification of the applicant's earlier application (Japanese Patent Application No. 1-249154), and the outline thereof is as follows.

FIG. 3 shows a conceptual diagram of an information processing device using the optical disk memory device, and FIG. 4 shows a plan view and a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the optical disk as a memory medium. There is.

The memory device of this embodiment uses an optical disk enclosed in a transparent protective case. The optical disk enclosed in the transparent protective case is made into a card shape as shown in FIG. 4, and is detachable from the disk drive device shown by the dashed line in FIG. 3. The disk drive device includes an optical head that writes/reads information on the inserted optical disk;
It is equipped with a motor and a drive circuit that rotate the optical disc inserted into the transparent protective case. Optical head can read/write and erase (play/record and erase)
I do. The drive circuit has a data demodulation function for modulating and reproducing data for write and erase. The drive circuit also performs rotation control operations for the motor.

It is connected to a processor that performs various information processing operations via a drive circuit. The processor executes arithmetic processing or recording/reproduction on an optical disk based on commands from an input means such as a keyboard, and outputs the contents of the recording on the optical disk or the results of calculations using an output means such as a flat display device or printer as necessary. Output.

As shown in FIG. 4, the optical disc is housed in a credit card-sized protective case that has been widely used in the past. Here, in the optical disc, at least the light beam incident part of the protective case shown by the dotted line in the figure is constituted by a transparent protective plate.

It goes without saying that there is no problem in making the entire protective case transparent.

In conventional optical disk devices, when a light beam is input,
The door of the protective case was opened and a light beam was directed directly onto the optical disc. For this reason, dust and dirt enter through the light beam entrance door, so we took measures to prevent this from happening on the board.
*It was necessary to use a transparent substrate.

On the other hand, in the optical disc of this example, the incident part of the light beam is covered with a transparent protective case, so dust and dirt do not attach directly to the optical disc, and there is no need to use a protective case to support the optical disc medium. The thickness of the substrate is 1.
2 There is no need for +u.

The optical disc is not fixed inside the protective case (but is allowed to rotate freely inside. This reduces the thickness of the optical disc, including the transparent protective case, to about 1.
．． It can be formed as thin as 81. In order to prevent dirt and dust from entering the central part where the rotation axis of the optical disc is located, it is necessary to cover the non-recording area in the central part with a dustproof cloak or provide a bearing to eliminate the open part (not shown). is desirable. A magnetic clamp provided on the optical disk is used to mechanically connect it to the rotating shaft of the motor. By using such a magnetic clamp, it is possible to easily attach and detach (replace) a card-shaped optical disk and a memory device (disk drive device).

The storage capacity of the optical disc of this embodiment can be estimated as follows.

In the field of IC cards and memory cards, the external dimensions of cards have already been standardized, and the external dimensions are approximately 54 cranes x 35
+u. Since the optical disk memory (memory card) of this embodiment is also intended to be used as a voke-pull memory, it is formed to approximately match the size of the card of the above standard. That is, the transparent protective case is formed to meet the above-mentioned regulation 1.

Since the width of the transparent protective case is 54B, if one dragon is removed for each border, the external size of the optical disc will be 54B.
It is desirable to fall below a crane. Further, since it is desirable that the storage area in the optical disk is approximately ID inside from the outer shape of the disk, the outer diameter of the storage area is set to be approximately 48+*m. On the other hand, the inner diameter of the storage area is determined by the size of the hub for rotating the disk and the size of the disk holding part, and a diameter of about 15 to 28 mm is sufficient for the disk holding part. From the above, the area of the disk from the inner diameter of 15 m to the outer diameter of 48 fins can be used as a storage area.

For example, the memory capacity when 24 to 48 spaces are used as a storage area is calculated as follows. If a normal optical disc optical system is used, the trunk spacing is 1
．． Since 6 μm is used, if the number of tracks is determined from this, about 7500) ranks can be formed. Further, since the bit density is approximately 1.4 μm/focus, the number of bits per track is approximately 53.8 Kbits. Therefore, the total storage capacity is approximately 50MB (megahide), despite being a small card-like memory as mentioned above.
You can get a huge storage capacity.

The disk drive device shown in FIG.
The lenses of the optical system for reproduction and erasing are assembled in a stacked manner. As mentioned above, the card is thin, and by using a reversible phase change optical disk as described below, which does not require a magnetic head for recording and erasing as a storage medium, unlike conventional optical disk devices, the optical system The thickness of the disk drive device as a whole can also be reduced to about 10 mm.Thus, the thickness of the disk drive device as a whole can be reduced to about 10 mm. or C can be obtained.

An overview of the principles of recording, erasing and reproducing on phase change optical discs is as follows:
It is as follows.

Recording is achieved by irradiating a recording medium with a relatively high-power laser beam, melting the recording film, and then cooling the recording film to bring it into an amorphous state. Erasing involves irradiating the recording medium with relatively low power laser light.
This is achieved by crystallizing an amorphous recording film. For reproduction, the recording medium is irradiated with a laser beam of even lower power, and information is reproduced based on the difference in reflectance between the amorphous state and the crystalline state. An example of a recording film having such properties is an In-5bTe-based recording film.

By configuring a memory device using the above-mentioned optical disk card and disk drive device,
A small and thin cassette-shaped drive device as shown in FIG. 1 can be realized.

Although not particularly limited, the above-mentioned credit card-sized optical disk may be an intermediate size of memory medium B, a large capacity memory medium A that is larger in size, and a small capacity memory medium C that is smaller in size. to 3
types are available.

In this way, cassette-shaped disk drive devices of the same size are configured for memory media of different sizes.

FIG. 5 shows a schematic external perspective view of an embodiment of a lamp-top personal computer in which the memory device according to the present invention is used.

In the lamp-top personal computer of this embodiment, the keyboard and main body are integrally constructed, and the flat display device is attached to the main body and stored so as to overlap the keyboard. This allows it to be made smaller when being carried around.

The memory device is used as an external storage device for this laptop personal computer. That is,
The main body of the laptop personal computer is provided with a slot into which a drive device constituting the memory device is inserted. The size of this slot is formed to match the size of the disk drive device. Drive devices A to C in the memory device of this embodiment have the same external dimensions;
. This makes it possible for the lamp-top personal computer to use any of the memory media A to C of different sizes.

Furthermore, if the interface circuit is provided with a recording format conversion function, data created by the lamp-top personal computer of this embodiment and output to one of the memory media A to C can be transferred to a workstation of another model. It also becomes possible to read the information using a stationary personal computer, word processor, or the like.

The effects obtained from the above examples are as follows. That is, a plurality of types of drive devices are provided that perform memory access to the storage medium in one-to-one correspondence with each of a plurality of types of replaceable storage media having different fll sizes, and a plurality of types of drive devices are provided. By standardizing the connection format with the information processing equipment in each, an effect can be obtained that storage media of different sizes can be used by replacing the entire drive device in one information processing equipment.

(2) The above (1) provides the effect that a highly versatile external memory device can be obtained.

(3) By using an optical disk housed in a card-like protective case as a memory medium, it is possible to realize a thin drive device like a cassette while ensuring a large storage capacity, and it can be easily replaced. This effect can be obtained.

(4) By providing the interface of the drive device with a recording format conversion function, it is possible to realize data exchange between information processing devices having different models and recording format specifications.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically explained above based on Examples, it goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned Examples, and can be modified in various ways without departing from the gist thereof. Nor. For example, an IC card having a semiconductor chip and a battery built into a card-shaped protective case may be used as the replaceable memory medium. In this case, the drive device is composed of an electronic circuit equipped with a memory controller etc. that accesses the RAM chip, so there is no need for a motor or optical head as in the case of using the above-mentioned optical disk. This makes it possible to make the device smaller and thinner. The replaceable storage medium may be any medium as long as the drive device that accesses the memory can be configured to be relatively compact. Further, the number of types of sizes of the replaceable storage medium may be two or more. Further, the connection between the memory device and the information processing equipment in which the memory device is used may be a plug-in method by inserting a cassette-shaped drive device as described above, or a cable may be used for connection.

The present invention can be widely used as an external memory device for various information processing devices.

〔Effect of the invention〕

A brief explanation of the effects obtained by typical inventions disclosed in this application is as follows. That is, a plurality of types of drive devices are provided that perform memory access to the storage medium in one-to-one correspondence with each of a plurality of types of replaceable storage media of different sizes, and each of the plurality of types of drive devices is By standardizing the connection format with information processing equipment in the information processing equipment, storage media of different sizes can be used by replacing the entire drive device in one information processing equipment.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view showing one embodiment of a replaceable memory medium used in a memory device according to the present invention, and FIGS. 2A to 2C are diagrams showing each of the above-mentioned memory media and a corresponding drive device. A schematic perspective view showing an embodiment; FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing an embodiment of an optical disk memory device suitable for the memory device according to the present invention and an information processing device incorporating the same; FIG. FIG. 5 is a plan view and a sectional view showing an embodiment of an optical disk as a memory medium. FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an external appearance of a laptop-sized personal computer using a memory device according to the present invention. Figure 3 Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A drive device including a plurality of types of drive devices provided in one-to-one correspondence with at least a plurality of types of replaceable storage media having different sizes, and performing memory access to the storage medium; A memory device characterized in that the plurality of types of drive devices have a common connection format with information processing equipment. 2. The plurality of drive devices mentioned above have a unified external size in the form of a cassette, and are connected to the information processing device by being inserted into a memory device slot provided in the information processing device. A memory device according to claim 1, characterized in that: 3. The memory device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the replaceable storage medium is an optical disk housed in a card-like protective case.