JPH09325844A - Wireless keyboard system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce the power consumption of a keyboard part without deteriorating the handling performance of the keyboard by showing the operating state of the keyboard part via a display means of a keyboard control part. SOLUTION: When the key input of a key input means 10 is recognized, the control means 11 of a keyboard part 1 generates the input key information and gives it to a light emitting means 12 to perform the communication with a keyboard control part 2 by the infrared rays. The means 12 converts the information given from a control part as electric signals into the infrared rays 3 and outputs these rays. The part 2 receives the rays 3 from the part 1 via light receiving means 23 and converts them into the electric signals to input them to a control part 21. The part 21 analyzes the received electric signals and converts them into the character code information to transmit it to an external device. Under such conditions, the consumption of a power supply must be reduced at the part 1. In this respect, a display means 25 is added to the part 2 to show the operating state of a keyboard.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a wireless keyboard system, and more particularly to reducing the power consumption of a keyboard unit.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a keyboard used in a personal computer or a workstation is provided with a display indicating the operating state of the keyboard on the keyboard body. Typical displays are num lock, caps lock, scroll lock, etc. Regarding the wireless keyboard system, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-12170, only the communication means is described, and there is no description about displaying the operating state of the keyboard.

[0003]

As described above, a keyboard of a personal computer or the like has some operating states. However, if the operating state of the keyboard that is set is not clear, the user must enter the key input one by one. You have to check the operating status, which makes it very difficult to use. Therefore, the display function indicating the operating state of the keyboard is essential. Usually, a light emitting diode is used for display.

In the wireless keyboard system composed of the keyboard section and the keyboard control section, a battery is used as the power source of the keyboard section. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce power consumption as much as possible.

[0005]

In a wireless keyboard system composed of a keyboard unit and a keyboard control unit, generally, a battery is used for the power supply of the keyboard, and the keyboard control unit is powered by an external device connected thereto. Is supplied.

In order to reduce the power consumption of the keyboard section without deteriorating the original usability of the keyboard, a display function indicating the operating state of the keyboard should be provided in the keyboard control section with sufficient power. Good.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A wireless keyboard system according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of one embodiment of a wireless keyboard system according to the present invention. The keyboard unit 1 controls the key input means 10 for inputting pre-defined characters, symbols and numbers and controls the key input means to discriminate the entered key, and is assigned to each character, symbol and number. Control means 11 for controlling the keyboard part 1 as a whole and generating the information, a light emitting means 12 for converting the information generated by the control part into an infrared light and outputting the infrared light, and receiving the infrared light as an electric signal It comprises a light receiving means 13 for converting and inputting to the control means 11, and a power source 14 for supplying electric power to the entire keyboard portion. Then, as the power source 14, a primary battery such as a dry battery or a secondary battery is usually used.

On the other hand, the keyboard controller 2 is an interface means 2 for connecting to an external device such as a personal computer.
0, controls the entire keyboard control unit 2, converts the received information from the keyboard unit into a defined character code, transmits the defined character code to the connected external device, and further generates control information to be transmitted to the keyboard unit 1. Control unit 21, light emitting unit 22 for converting information from the electric signal into infrared light and outputting the information, and light emitting unit 12 of keyboard unit 1 that receives the light.
Light receiving means 2 for converting infrared light output from the device into an electric signal
3, a power supply 2 for supplying power to the entire keyboard control unit 2
4 and display means 25 for displaying the state of the apparatus. Then, the power source 24 is usually supplied with electric power from an external device connected thereto.

First, the general operation of the wireless keyboard system will be described.

In the keyboard section 1, when the control means 11 recognizes a key input from the key input means 10, it generates information for a predefined input key for communicating with the keyboard control section 2 by infrared light. Then, the light emitting means 12
Give to. The light emitting means 12 converts the information given as an electric signal from the control unit into infrared light 3 for communication and outputs it.

In the keyboard control unit 2, first, when the infrared light 3 from the keyboard unit 1 is received, the light receiving means 23
Then, the infrared light is converted into an electric signal and input to the control unit 21. When the control unit 21 analyzes the electric signal and recognizes that it is the key information defined in advance, the control unit 21 converts it into the character code information defined in advance, and the device connected to the outside through the interface unit 20. Send to.

The light receiving means 13 of the keyboard section 1 and the light emitting means 22 of the keyboard control section 2 are used for transmitting information from the keyboard control section 2 to the keyboard section 1. In the communication method, first, the control means 21 gives the light emitting means 22 information on the keyboard portion 1 which is defined in advance. The light emitting means 22 converts this information from an electric signal into infrared light 4 and outputs it. In the keyboard portion 1, the infrared light 4 is converted into an electric signal by the light receiving means 13 and input to the control means 11. When the control means 11 analyzes this information and recognizes that it is information for a predefined keyboard part, it controls the keyboard part according to the definition. Therefore, if it is not necessary to control the keyboard unit 1 from the keyboard control unit 2, it is not necessary to provide the light receiving unit 13 of the keyboard unit 1 and the light emitting unit 22 of the keyboard control unit 2.

By such a series of operations, the personal computer 5
It acts as a keyboard for external devices such as (not shown).

Next, the features of the present invention will be described. As described above, the keyboard unit 1 is usually powered by a primary battery such as a dry battery or a secondary battery. for that reason,
It is necessary to reduce the power consumption of the keyboard unit 1 as much as possible.

A keyboard (wired) that is currently used as a standard in the world is provided with several operating states. For example, there are a num lock state that switches between numeric input and cursor input of a dedicated numeric input key, a caps lock state that switches between lowercase letter input and uppercase letter input, and a scroll lock state that temporarily suspends the display of external devices. Is displayed with a light emitting diode or the like. Even wireless keyboard systems need to satisfy this feature. Without this display, the user would only have to check the operating state of the keyboard by entering each key, which would significantly impair usability. However, the power consumption of the display element such as a light emitting diode used for displaying the operating state and the driving means for driving the same accounts for a considerably large proportion of the power consumption of the entire keyboard.

According to the present invention, the power consumption of the display element and the driving means can be completely reduced from the keyboard section 1. The keyboard control unit 2 is provided with the display means 25, and the operating state of the keyboard is displayed on the display means 25.

FIG. 2 shows a more detailed block configuration of the display means 25. The display means 25 includes display elements 254 and 25 such as light emitting diodes for displaying the respective operating states.
5, 256, 257 and driving means 250, 251, 252, 253 for driving the display elements, respectively. In the present embodiment, a num lock state that switches between numeric input and cursor input of a dedicated numeric input key, a caps lock state that switches between lowercase letter input and uppercase letter input, a scroll lock state that temporarily suspends display of an external device, and a system Although four kinds of operation states of the ready state, which indicate the usable state, are displayed, the operation states and the number and types of the displays are not particularly limited.

In this embodiment, the display element 2 is used for displaying the num lock state for switching the number input state of the dedicated number input key.
54 and the driving means 250 are assigned, the display element 255 and the driving means 251 are assigned to the display of the caps lock state for switching between the input of lowercase letters and the input of uppercase letters, and the scroll lock state for temporarily stopping the display of the external device is set. The display element 256 and the driving means 252 are allocated to the display, and the display element 2 is displayed in the ready state indicating that the display element 2 is in the usable state.
57 and drive means 253 are assigned.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the configuration of the front panel of the keyboard controller 2. Display elements 254, 255, 2
56, 257, the light emitting portion of the light emitting means 22 and the light receiving portion of the light receiving means 23 are mounted, and the display elements 254, 2
55, 256, 257 above the label 30
(num lock), 32 (caps lock), 33 (scroll lock), 3
4 (ready) is specified. When the display element lights up, it indicates that the display element is in the operating state.

FIG. 4 shows an example of use of the wireless keyboard system according to the present invention. The keyboard control unit 2 is connected to the personal computer 5, and the key input from the keyboard unit 1 is transferred to the keyboard unit 1 and the keyboard control unit 2.
Infrared light is used for wireless communication with the keyboard control unit 2
By converting the character code into a character code and inputting it into the personal computer 5, the function as a keyboard is satisfied. In this case, key input is performed while looking at the display (not shown) of the personal computer 5. Therefore, since the keyboard control unit 2 is in a position visible to the user, the display unit 25 that indicates the operating state of the keyboard unit 1 is displayed on the panel of the keyboard control unit 2.
Becomes effective.

FIG. 5 shows the controller 21 of the keyboard controller 2.
Is an operation flow from receiving one key information from the keyboard unit 1 to transmitting it to an external device. In this example, the keyboard control unit 2 itself can analyze and set the operating state of the keyboard unit.

First, by the initial processing 60, information from the keyboard unit 1 is made ready for input, and the process shifts to a key input waiting state 61 to wait for a key input from the keyboard unit 1. Next, when a key input is detected, information for one key information is fetched and analyzed to determine what this code means.

If the above information is information for updating the num lock state, the num lock state is updated (if the num lock state is present, the num lock state is released, and if it is in the num lock released state, num lock state). Set the state) and then num lock
The state display is updated (in the case of the num lock state, the display element 254 that displays the num lock state is turned on).

If the information is information for updating the caps lock state, the caps lock state is updated (caps lock state is released if in the caps lock state, caps lock state is in the caps lock released state) Set the status) and update the caps lock status display (if the caps lock status is displayed,
The display element 255 for displaying the caps lock state is turned on).

If the information is information for updating the scroll lock state, the scroll lock state is updated (scrol
If it is in l lock state, release scroll lock state
If it is in the croll lock release state, set the scroll lock state) and further update the scroll lock state display (scr
In the case of the oll lock state, the display element 256 for displaying the scroll lock state is turned on).

Then, according to the set operation mode, it is converted into a character code (character code conversion process 72) and transmitted to an external device (transmission process 73) to end a series of processes.

FIG. 6 shows the control unit 21 of the keyboard control unit 2.
2 is another operation flow from receiving one key information from the keyboard unit 1 to transmitting it to an external device.
In this example, the keyboard control unit 2 itself does not have a function of analyzing and setting the operating state of the keyboard unit. The keyboard control unit 2 does not analyze the information from the keyboard unit 1, but merely converts the information into a character code (character code conversion process 72) and transmits it to an external device (transmission process 73). In this case, the operating state of the keyboard is managed by the external device.

Although not particularly shown, the external device analyzes the character code transmitted from the keyboard control unit 2 and
If it is a character code that updates the lock state, num lock
The state is updated and the control information for setting the num lock state is output to the keyboard control unit 2. The character code or scrollloc that updates the caps lock state
Even if it is a character code to update k state, scroll lock
The status or the capslock status is updated, and the control information is output to the keyboard control unit 2. If it does not correspond to the above control information, analysis and processing will be executed for further other control information.

FIG. 7 shows an operation flow for setting the operation state of the keyboard when the keyboard control unit 2 receives the above control information from the external device. The keyboard control unit 2 sets the num lock state when receiving the information for setting the num lock state from the external device, and releases the num lock state when receiving the information for releasing the num lock state. Here again, if it is in the num lock state, the display element 254 that displays the num lock state is turned on. Also, from an external device, ca
If you receive information setting the ps lock state, caps lo
When the ck state is set and the information for releasing the caps lock state is received, the caps lock state is released. Again, caps l
A display element 255 that displays a caps lock state if it is in the ock state
Lights up. Furthermore, when the information for setting the scroll lock state is received from the external device, the scroll lock state is set, and when the information for releasing the scroll lock state is received, the scroll lock state is released. Again, scroll lock
Display element 256 displaying the scroll lock state if the state
Lights up.

As described above, in the wireless keyboard system, the power consumption of the keyboard unit 1 can be greatly reduced without impairing the usability.

[0032]

According to the present invention, the effectiveness of wireless can be exhibited without deteriorating the usability of the original keyboard, and the battery life of the keyboard portion can be greatly improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of display means of a keyboard control unit of the wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a front view of an embodiment of a front panel of a keyboard control unit of a wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a usage state of the wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an operation flowchart of a keyboard controller of the wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an operation flowchart of a keyboard controller of the wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an operation flowchart of a keyboard controller of the wireless keyboard system according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Keyboard part, 10 ... Key input means, 11, 20,
21 ... Control means, 12, 22 ... Light emitting means, 13, 23 ...
Light receiving means, 14, 24 ... Power source, 2 ... Keyboard control unit,
20 ... Interface means, 25 ... Display means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A key input means for inputting a predefined character, symbol or numeral, a first control means for generating information assigned to the inputted character, symbol or numeral, said first The first light emitting means for converting the information generated by the control means from an electric signal into infrared light and outputting the same, the first light receiving means for converting the received infrared light into an electric signal, and a power supply for the entire apparatus. A keyboard unit that serves as a first power source for supplying electric power, interface means for connecting to an external device, second light receiving means for converting the received infrared light into an electric signal, and the second light receiving means. Second control means for converting the information from the character code into a character code and generating information to be transmitted to the keyboard part, and a second for outputting the information from the second control means by converting the electric signal into infrared light. And the status of the A display unit, a keyboard controller consisting of a second power supply for supplying power to the entire device,
In a wireless keyboard system in which infrared rays are communicated between the keyboard unit and the keyboard control unit, the operating state of the keyboard unit is displayed by display means of the keyboard control unit. ·system.