Telephone communications device for hearing-impaired person
First Claim
1. A device, required only at a receiving location, for visually presenting information communicated over a telephone connection as a sequence of dual-tone-matrix-frequency (DTMF) signals to a receiving telephone instrument at said receiving location, comprising:
- transducer means receiving the DTMF audio tones from said receiving telephone instrument for converting said audio tones into electrical signals;
means for filtering each dual-tone electrical signal into concurrent high-frequency-group and low-frequency-group electrical tone signals;
decoding means for converting each combination of one of the high-frequency-group tone signals and one of the low-frequency-group tone signals to an associated digital signal;
microprocessor means, including means for storing a set of instructions and for providing at least one randomly-accessible storage register, for recognizing the digital signal as at least a portion of one of a set of display control and alphanumeric symbols with each set symbol being completely characterized by no more than two successively-received digital signals, for storing the alphanumeric symbol in said register, for modifying the sequence and presence of the alphanumeric symbols stored in said register responsive to said display control symbols and for outputting a plurality of sequential alphanumeric symbols, including at least the last-received alphanumeric symbol, upon recognition of the at lest one digital signal corresponding to said last-received symbol; and
means receiving the microprocessor means symbol output for simultaneously displaying the plurality of sequential alphanumeric symbols successively including at least said last-received alphanumeric symbol as soon as recognized by the microprocessor means.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A device for visually presenting communications information, communicated over the telephone network by a pair of sequential dual-tone-matrix-frequency (DTMF) signals to a hearing-impaired person'"'"'s location, includes an integrated circuit filter for separating the dual tones into one high-frequency-group tone and one low-frequency-group tones for concurrent presentation to a decoder. The decoder presents a four-bit signal to a microprocessor programmed to recognize the pair of sequentially-decoded DTMF signals as one of a set of alphanumeric symbols and to the parallel-format this character information. the character information is coupled to display drivers and associated displays, to present a plurality of sequential alphanumeric characters upon a visible display, in scrolled fashion, whereby the hearing-impaired person views visible information converted from audible tones. Only the recipient need have the communications device of the present invention, whereby a hearing-impaired recipient can receive information from any tone-encoded telephone instrument, without the requirement for the sender of information to possess special equipment.
59 Citations
11 Claims
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1. A device, required only at a receiving location, for visually presenting information communicated over a telephone connection as a sequence of dual-tone-matrix-frequency (DTMF) signals to a receiving telephone instrument at said receiving location, comprising:
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transducer means receiving the DTMF audio tones from said receiving telephone instrument for converting said audio tones into electrical signals; means for filtering each dual-tone electrical signal into concurrent high-frequency-group and low-frequency-group electrical tone signals; decoding means for converting each combination of one of the high-frequency-group tone signals and one of the low-frequency-group tone signals to an associated digital signal; microprocessor means, including means for storing a set of instructions and for providing at least one randomly-accessible storage register, for recognizing the digital signal as at least a portion of one of a set of display control and alphanumeric symbols with each set symbol being completely characterized by no more than two successively-received digital signals, for storing the alphanumeric symbol in said register, for modifying the sequence and presence of the alphanumeric symbols stored in said register responsive to said display control symbols and for outputting a plurality of sequential alphanumeric symbols, including at least the last-received alphanumeric symbol, upon recognition of the at lest one digital signal corresponding to said last-received symbol; and means receiving the microprocessor means symbol output for simultaneously displaying the plurality of sequential alphanumeric symbols successively including at least said last-received alphanumeric symbol as soon as recognized by the microprocessor means. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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Specification