JPH07130121A - Disk cartridge - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a visually handcapped user to discriminate a classification of the disk cartridge quite easily and moreover to drastically improve yield of the product in facilitating product management and reducing manufacturing cost. CONSTITUTION:Braille 8 for showing a recordable capacity or a recordable time, etc., (the recordable time is the example in the figure) of a disk are stamped in a projecting shape as an identification display on a shutter plate part 7 of a shutter member 5 as a constitutive element of the disk cartridge.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a disc cartridge constructed by accommodating a disc such as a magneto-optical disc, an optical disc or a magnetic disc in a cartridge.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, discs for recording and / or reproducing information signals, such as so-called optical discs and magneto-optical discs, have been proposed.

This disc has a disc-shaped disc substrate made of a material such as transparent synthetic resin, and a signal recording layer is provided on one main surface of the disc substrate. Then, the other main surface portion of this disk substrate is a signal recording surface.

That is, in order to record and / or reproduce an information signal using this disc, a light beam such as a laser beam is focused and irradiated on the signal recording layer through the disc substrate from the signal recording surface. Then, writing and / or reading of the information signal is performed on this signal recording layer.

The center portion of this disc is a chucked portion held by a so-called disc player device for writing and / or reading information signals to and from the disc. In this disc, the signal recording surface is on the peripheral side of the chucked portion.

Conventionally, the above-mentioned disk is prevented from being damaged by adhesion of dust or the like or contact with fingers, and
In order to facilitate the handling of the disc, a disc cartridge has been proposed in which the disc is housed in a cartridge body formed in a casing.

The cartridge body is provided with an opening for recording / reproducing information signals and a shutter member which normally closes the opening. This shutter member is formed of a thin metal plate in a substantially U-shape, and connects the shutter plate portion for opening and closing the information signal recording / reproducing opening and the base end side of the shutter portion. And a connecting plate portion.

The recordable capacity or recordable time of the disc is printed on the main surface side of the cartridge body of the shutter member.

[0009]

By the way, recently,
In the case where the user is visually impaired, an attempt has been made to indicate the type of the information recording medium by using the identification display of the uneven shape. For example, in a compact cassette in which a magnetic tape capable of recording an audio signal is stored, the cassette half body is used for visually impaired persons and is used for discriminating the A and B sides of the cassette half body separately from normal printing. A concave or convex identification mark is provided, and a concave or convex arrow or the like is engraved so that the recording time can be sensed by touch. This stamp is formed by using a mold for injection molding the cassette half body when the cassette half body is manufactured.

As in the case of the above-mentioned compact cassette, the cartridge body is injection-molded when a means for discriminating the recordable capacity or the recordable time by tactile sense is provided by engraving the concave-convex identification mark. When the cartridge main body is manufactured by using the mold for molding, the mold for exclusive use is used for each disc cartridge according to the difference in the recordable capacity or the recordable time, and the identification mark is displayed on the cartridge. A method of making various disc cartridges by stamping on the main body and exchanging the insert of the injection molding die according to these disc cartridges to produce various disc cartridges with different indications of recordable capacity or recordable time A method and is devised.

However, in the former method, it is difficult to distinguish the various disk cartridges from each other at the time of manufacturing the disk cartridges, so that different kinds of products are apt to be mixed, and product management is difficult. Also,
In the latter method, it takes about 7 hours to replace the insert of the injection molding die, during which the molding operation of the cartridge body is stopped. Therefore, the production efficiency is low and the yield of products is significantly reduced. Furthermore, as in the former case, the problem of mixing different kinds of products also occurs at the same time.

The present invention has been proposed in view of the above-mentioned various problems, and it is very easy for a visually impaired user to determine the type (recordable capacity or recordable time) of the disc cartridge. It is an object of the present invention to provide a disk cartridge which is capable of achieving the above-mentioned features, which is extremely easy to manage, and which can reduce the manufacturing cost and significantly improve the yield of products.

[0013]

According to the present invention, there is provided a cartridge for accommodating a disk-shaped recording medium and having an opening for recording and reproducing an information signal for exposing a part of the disk-shaped recording medium to the outside, and the above cartridge. And a shutter member that opens and closes the opening, and the shutter member is formed by engraving an identification display of a concave-convex shape indicating the type of the disk-shaped recording medium.

In this case, the shutter member may be made of a material different from that of the cartridge body.

In this case, the shutter member may be made of metal as a material.

Further, the shutter member is provided so as to be movable along the main surface portion of the cartridge, and has a shutter plate portion for opening and closing an opening for information signal recording / reproduction provided on the main surface portion of the cartridge. An unevenness identification mark may be formed by engraving on the shutter plate.

Further, the identification display of the uneven shape may be formed in Braille.

[0018]

In the disc cartridge according to the present invention, there is a visual obstacle in the identification display of the concave-convex shape showing the type of the recording medium stamped on the shutter member provided in the cartridge body in which the disc-shaped recording medium is housed. When touched by the user, the tactile sensation makes it extremely easy to determine the type (recordable capacity or recordable time) of the disc cartridge.

Further, since the shutter member is the portion on which the identification mark of the uneven shape is engraved, when the disc cartridge is manufactured, the mold of the shutter member is inserted into the shutter of various disc cartridges. The time required for replacement depending on the member will be greatly reduced.

Further, since the shutter member is made of a material different from that of the cartridge main body, a user having a visual impairment firstly discriminates the type of information recording medium due to the difference in the sense of touch (temperature perception, etc.). The position of the shutter member on which the identification display of the uneven shape is marked is known, and then the identification display can be easily located by the tactile sense. Therefore, a user with a visual impairment can determine the type of the disc cartridge in a short time.

Furthermore, since the shutter member is formed of metal as a material, the difference in tactile sensation between the shutter member and the other parts of the disk cartridge becomes more remarkable. Therefore, the visually impaired user can easily determine the type of the disk cartridge in a shorter time.

Further, since the shutter plate portion of the shutter member for opening and closing the information signal recording / reproducing opening provided on the main surface portion of the cartridge is engraved with the identification indication of the uneven shape, the user having visual impairment is inspected. Can very easily know the display position of the identification display by touch.

Furthermore, since the above-mentioned concave-convex identification display is in Braille, and Braille is a commonly used transmission means for visually impaired users, these users can more easily select the type of disc cartridge. It is possible to determine.

[0024]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a disk cartridge according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. This disc cartridge, as shown in FIGS.
And a cartridge 2 for accommodating the disc 1.

Incidentally, FIG. 1 illustrates a reproduction-only disc cartridge, and FIGS. 2 to 4 illustrate a recording / reproduction disc cartridge.

In the central portion of the disc 1, a center hole 1 which constitutes a chucked portion for holding the disc 1 by a so-called disc player device for writing and / or reading an information signal to / from a signal recording layer is formed.
a is provided. In this disc 1, a portion of one of the main surface portions around the center hole 1a serves as a signal recording surface.

The cartridge 2 is made of synthetic resin such as AB.
Upper shells 2a made of S resin or the like and paired with each other
The lower shell 2b and the lower shell 2b are butt-joined to each other, so that the disk 1 can be housed in a substantially rectangular thin casing. In the cartridge 2, the disc 1 is housed with one main surface portion serving as a signal recording surface being the side of the lower shell 2b and the other main surface portion being the side of the upper shell 2a.

Here, in the recording / reproducing disk cartridge, the opening 1 for the magnetic / magnetic head is provided in the upper shell 2a.
1, and the lower shell 2b is provided with an opening 3 for an optical pickup device. The opening 3 for the optical pickup device is a through hole having a substantially rectangular shape, and is closer to one side portion of the lower shell 2b than the central portion of the lower shell 2b, that is, one of the cartridges 2 It is provided over the vicinity of the side edge portion.

In a read-only disc cartridge, the upper shell 2a does not have a magnetic-magnetic head opening, and the lower shell 2b has an optical pickup device opening 3. The opening 3 for the optical pickup device is a through hole having a substantially rectangular shape, and is the lower shell 2 described above.
It is provided from the vicinity of the central portion of b to the vicinity of one side portion of the lower shell 2b, that is, the vicinity of one side edge portion of the cartridge 2.

An approximately circular chucking opening 4 is provided at the center of the lower shell 2b. The chucking opening 4 exposes the chucked portion including the center hole 1a and the like to the outside. The disc player device holds the disc 1 by inserting the disc table into the cartridge 2 through the chucking opening 4.

A shutter member 5 is provided in this disc cartridge. This shutter member 5
Is for opening and closing the optical pickup device. The shutter member 5 has a connecting plate portion 6 and a shutter plate portion 7 and an inserting plate portion (not shown) supported by the connecting plate portion 6, respectively. The shape is integrally formed by bending.

Then, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the shutter plate portion 7 of the shutter member 5 has a projection indicating the recordable capacity or recordable time of the disc (recordable time in the illustrated example). Braille 8 is engraved as a shape identification display.

Regarding the Braille 8 engraved on the shutter plate portion 7 of the shutter member 5, the size of each dot is 1.5 mm in diameter, which is the standard size of Braille used for paper materials in Japan. That's it. In addition, the height of the braille 8 is 0.2 mm because the crushing of the braille, which is likely to occur when the braille is used with the above paper material, does not occur in the shutter member 5.
It is set to a degree. Further, the pitch between the dots of the braille 8 adopts the braille standard of the United States, which is larger than that common in Japan, in order to make the reading of the braille easier.

According to the general Braille standard in Japan, as shown in FIG. 5, one character is expressed by using a maximum of 6 dots, and the intervals between the dots are 2.3 mm in length and 2.1 mm in width. The size of one character is 4.6 mm x 2.
It is set to 1 mm and the character spacing is 3.0 mm. And
In the Braille standard of the United States adopted in the above embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, one character is represented by a maximum of 6 dots, and the interval between dots is 0.09 inch (2.286 mm) in the vertical direction, 0.09 inch (2.286 m)
The size of one character is 0.18 inch (4.572 mm) x 0.25 inch (6.35 m) per character.
m) and the character spacing is 0.16 inches (4.064 mm).

Braille characters 8 stamped on the shutter plate 7
For example, when it is clear that the engraved Braille 8 is a numeral, as shown in Table 1, the numerals 0 to 9 are expressed using 1 to 4 dots.

[0036]

[Table 1]

When the Braille 8 to be engraved is a combination of numbers and letters, a key represented by four dots is provided in front of the numbers as shown in Table 2.

[0038]

[Table 2]

In the example shown in FIG. 2 of the above embodiment, Braille indicating the recordable time of 60 (minutes) is imprinted on the shutter plate portion 7.

By the way, a method of directly engraving, for example, an Arabic numeral (for example, 60) indicating a recordable time on the shutter plate portion 7 of the shutter member 5 as the concave identification display may be adopted. However, since the engraved area is smaller in Braille than in Arabic numerals, the strain exerted on the peripheral surface of the shutter plate portion 7 is small. Considering that Braille is the mainstream used for ticket vending machines at railway stations and taxi doors, etc., it is considered that Braille is more common for the visually impaired.

Here, as a method for manufacturing the shutter member 5 which is a constituent element of the disk cartridge according to the above-described embodiment, by engraving a Braille character as a convex identification mark on the shutter plate portion 7, first, a shutter is formed. After the member 5 is made of a thin metal plate as a material, after undergoing an external removing step, for example, Braille representing a recordable time is stamped on the surface to be the shutter plate portion 7 by using the rule shown in FIG. And a progressive pressing process that goes through a separating process.

In the above embodiment, the shutter member 5 is formed by using a thin metal plate as a material, but the present invention is not limited to this, and can be applied to a shutter formed of plastic, for example. is there.

In the disk cartridge according to the above-mentioned embodiment, Braille 8 which is an identification display of the uneven shape showing the type of the information recording medium stamped on the shutter member provided in the cartridge 2 for accommodating the information recording medium is provided. When touched by a visually impaired user, it is possible to very easily determine the type (recordable capacity or recordable time) of the disc cartridge by the sense of touch.

Therefore, a visually impaired user can easily and accurately discriminate a disc cartridge in a very short time, select a desired disc cartridge, and perform recording / reproducing.

Further, since the portion where the Braille 8 which is the above-mentioned identification mark is marked is the shutter plate portion 7 of the shutter member 5,
At the time of manufacturing the disk cartridge, the time required for replacing the insert of the mold for manufacturing the shutter member 5 according to the shutter member of various disk cartridges is significantly shortened (reduced to about 1/7). It will be.

Therefore, the production efficiency can be increased and the product yield can be greatly improved. Also, in the case of engraving Braille on the upper or lower shell of the cartridge body, it is necessary to keep the entire thickness of the cartridge unchanged, and it must be formed so that the area around the Braille is dropped once. Although the display is difficult to discriminate, the shutter member 5 for engraving Braille in the above embodiment
Since the shutter plate portion 7 is formed lower than the upper or lower shell, only the Braille characters can be displayed in a convex shape, and the discrimination is very easy.

Further, since the shutter member 5 is made of a material (metal or the like) different from that of the cartridge 1, a user having a visual impairment first receives information due to the difference in the sense of touch (temperature perception, etc.). A shutter member 5 having a concave-convex identification mark indicating the type of recording medium.
It is possible to easily find the Braille 8 which is the identification display by its tactile sensation. Therefore, the visually impaired user can determine the type of the disc cartridge in a shorter time.

[0048]

According to the disk cartridge of the present invention, a cartridge having a disk-shaped recording medium and having an opening for recording and reproducing an information signal for exposing a part of the disk-shaped recording medium to the outside, is provided. A shutter member provided on the cartridge for opening and closing the opening is provided, and the shutter member is formed by engraving and forming an identification display of a concave-convex shape indicating the type of the disk-shaped recording medium, and thus has a visual impairment. The user can very easily discriminate the type (recordable capacity or recordable time) of the disc cartridge, and the product management is extremely easy, which reduces the manufacturing cost and greatly increases the product yield. It is possible to make various improvements.

Further, according to the present invention, since the shutter member is made of a material different from that of the cartridge body, a user having a visual impairment can easily and accurately obtain a desired disc cartridge in a short time. It becomes possible to select.

Further, according to the present invention, since the shutter member is made of metal as a material, a user having a visual impairment can easily and accurately select a desired disk cartridge in an extremely short time. Become.

Further, according to the present invention, the shutter member is movably provided along the main surface of the cartridge,
The cartridge has a shutter plate portion for opening and closing an information signal recording / reproducing opening provided on the main surface portion of the cartridge. It becomes possible for a user having the above-mentioned function to easily and accurately select a desired disk cartridge in a shorter time.

Further, according to the present invention, since the identification display of the uneven shape is formed as Braille, a user having a visual impairment can easily and accurately identify a desired disc by identifying the Braille that he or she is accustomed to on a daily basis. It becomes possible to select the cartridge.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the configuration of a disk cartridge (reproduction-only) according to this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a configuration of a disc cartridge (for recording / reproducing) according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a disk cartridge (for recording / reproducing) according to the present embodiment as viewed from the bottom surface.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the shutter member of the disc cartridge (for recording / reproducing) according to the present embodiment, which is viewed from the bottom surface and shows a state in which the lid is opened.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing sizes of general Braille in Japan.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing the size of Braille in the standard in the United States.

[Simple explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Disc 2 ... Cartridge 2a ... Upper shell 2b ... Lower shell 5 ... Shutter member 6 ... Connection plate part 7 ... Shutter plate part 8 ... Braille

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A cartridge having a disc-shaped recording medium and having an opening for recording / reproducing an information signal for exposing a part of the disc-shaped recording medium to the outside, and a cartridge provided in the cartridge for opening / closing the opening. A disc cartridge, wherein the shutter member is engraved with a concavo-convex identification mark indicating the type of the disc-shaped recording medium. 2. The disk cartridge according to claim 1, wherein the shutter member is made of a material different from that of the cartridge. 3. The disk cartridge according to claim 1, wherein the shutter member is made of metal. 4. A shutter member is provided movably along a main surface portion of a cartridge, and has a shutter plate portion for opening and closing an opening for information signal recording / reproduction provided on the main surface portion of the cartridge. The shutter plate portion is provided with an indentation-shaped identification display engraved thereon.
The disk cartridge described in 2 or 3. 5. The disk cartridge according to claim 1, 2, 3, or 4, wherein the identification display of the uneven shape is Braille.