JPS6317035Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention relates to an electronic hourglass device using a dot matrix display.

Originally, the multifunctionality of electronic watches began with the sharing of display elements, but gradually progressed to the sharing of each component of the watch, such as the power supply, oscillator, counter, and memory, and the timepieces became more multifunctional. It is becoming a kind of versatile information processing device. The most significant feature of digital displays in electronic watches is that they can switch between displaying multiple different pieces of information on the same display. It can be said that this has promoted the multifunctionality of electronic watches. Therefore, most electro-optical displays are digital displays, but analog displays have been popular for a long time and have advantages such as being able to intuitively understand the passage of time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional points, and from the viewpoint of increasing the number of functions of electronic watches, the present invention aims to provide a device equipped with an electronic hourglass function using a dot matrix display. be. That is, for example, in addition to the digital display, while the clock is transitioning from one time to the next, the clock display may be made to display in analog form as an hourglass;
An object of the present application is to obtain an electronic timepiece having a novel display form that can display time with a rich interior design.

Hereinafter, one embodiment of a timepiece device according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an external view of the device of the present invention. A glass frame B shaped like an 8 is drawn inside a case A that looks like an hourglass, and a dot matrix display is displayed inside the case A. diodes) are used, and the LEDs are dynamically displayed in units of digits, and are divided into units of digits _G1 to _G5 , as will be described later. And 5 for each digit of G ₁ to G ₄
×7 dot matrix display (LED) S ₁ ~
S ₃₅ is located. Further, girder _G5 is provided with displays _S1 to _S14 for displaying the state in which the sand is falling little by little, and this display is used to represent the sand in girders _G1 and _G2 (as dots). ) can be displayed to sequentially fall to digits G ₃ and G ₄ as a function of time.

FIG. 2 is a display example for explaining the hourglass function in the device, and the temporal changes in the display pattern are shown in A to O. For example, figure A is the current time 10
The hour 52 minutes is displayed digitally, and this time is displayed for 3 seconds, after which the current digital time changes to an hourglass display function.

That is, in the display block, the G ₁ digit and
G All _two digits are displayed as dots, indicating that sand is loaded at the top of the so-called hourglass container.
At the 4th second, dot display in digit unit G ₅ S ₆ ~ _{S 14}
and S ₁ are displayed, and after that, the display objects S ₂ and S ₃ are displayed every second.
are displayed sequentially, and at the 6th second, the dot display S ₁
is displayed again and the screen moves to the dot display _S5 . and
After 10 seconds, a ₃ -digit G dot display S ₃₅ and a _4- digit G dot display S ₃₁ are displayed with sand piled up underneath. This is repeated in sequence, and after 59 seconds, that is, one minute has elapsed, the next digital display is 10:53. That is, the hourglass is displayed in analog form as a one-minute counter, and is displayed as if sand were falling through a small hole.

3 shows a driving circuit for the display, which is made up of light-emitting diodes LED. Each of the dots _S1 to _S35 is commonly connected between each column, and one end of the LED is connected to a driving transistor _T1 to _T35 , and the other end is connected to a driving transistor _T36 to _T40 . The transistors _T1 to _T35 are also connected to the dot selection signals P1 to _P40 .
_P35 is selectively driven by transistor _T36
. . _T40 are selectively driven by column selection signals _G1S . . . _G5S .

Figure 4 is a circuit block diagram constituting the device of the present invention, where KEY is a key input unit for setting and correcting the time, and DISP is a display for analog dot display and digital display as the hourglass function. Drive unit, X-TAL
is a crystal oscillator that creates a reference signal, and the CPU
is a central processing unit that measures time using this crystal oscillator P ₁ ~ P ₃₅ , digit selection signal G _1S ~ _{G 5S}
is created and output. RAM is a memory that stores time data, and based on the contents of this RAM (RT), it is controlled by read-only memory (ROM) that stores time measurement and display algorithms. In this way, the CPU selects the dot selection signal P ₁ to
Digit selection signal G _1S output with phase shift of P ₃₅
~G It will output selectively depending on the output of _5S . For example, the RT of RAM, which is a time measurement means.
When the content of S is 0 to 2, as shown in FIG. 2A, a dot selection signal for displaying the time according to the RT of hours and minutes is selectively output. Further, if the contents of S in RT of the RAM are counting from 3 to 59, the dot selection signal for displaying the hourglass shown in FIG. 2 will be selectively output. In addition, the various display patterns shown in Fig. 2 are selectively displayed based on the character generator memory (ROM/CG) in response to the contents of RT in the RAM. A dot selection signal will be output. In particular, the characters include various patterns for displaying numerical values 0 to 9 and an hourglass, and
G This is achieved by storing patterns (5 types) for ₅ digits.

In the above embodiment, the digital time display can only be read once every minute for 3 seconds, but so that the current time etc. can be viewed at will.
It goes without saying that the key unit may be provided with a push key so that the hours, minutes, and seconds are constantly displayed by pressing this key, or the key may be of a lock type to switch modes. Furthermore, it goes without saying that this device can be used not only as an electronic timepiece, but can also be adapted to be installed in any type of equipment.

As explained above, according to the clock device of the present invention, it is possible not only to simply display the digital time, but also to display an hourglass while counting one minute, so that it can be used as an interior decoration device. , we can provide watches that are fun to watch.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is an external view of an example of an electronic hourglass device according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the display transition of the device,
FIG. 3 is a display driving circuit of the same device, and FIG. 4 is a block diagram configuring the same device. In the figure, A: device main body, B: display frame, _G1 to _G5 :
Digit display, S: dot display, KEY: key unit, DISP: display drive unit, CPU: central processing unit, ROM: read-only memory, RAM: random across memory,
-TAL: Crystal oscillator.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] A frequency divider circuit that receives the output of a reference signal oscillator and divides the oscillation frequency; a time clock means that receives the output of the frequency divider circuit and calculates a coefficient to measure the time;
An electronic type comprising a matrix-shaped display body for displaying time contents such as hours and minutes, and a driving means for displaying the time contents measured by the time measuring means by appropriately driving the matrix-structured display body to light up. In the timepiece, the display body displays the amount of sand using a collection of dots, and also displays a state in which the amount of sand is gradually decreased in response to time measurement by the time measurement means, and when the display of sand disappears altogether. For example, dot matrix-shaped hour display sections G1 and G2 are connected to the hour display section and display the hour H corresponding to the time of the time measurement means for a predetermined time by driving the drive means; A falling display section G in the form of a dot matrix that displays the falling state of the sand decreasing on the display section by driving the above-mentioned driving means.
5, a state in which the sand falling from the falling display section is piled up by a collection of dots in response to the time of the time measuring means connected to the falling display section, and in response to the hour display of the time display section; a dot matrix-shaped minute display section G3, G that displays a minute M according to the clock timer for a predetermined time by driving the drive means;
4. An electronic hourglass device comprising: