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Communication terminal for processing voice and graphical information

  • US 4,653,086 A
  • Filed: 03/15/1985
  • Issued: 03/24/1987
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/15/1984
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A communication terminal for processing voice and graphical information comprising, in combination:

  • an external casing having a compact design and including a cradle;

    a telephone set housed within said compact casing and including a handset electrically connected to said compact casing for processing voice communications, said cradle being configured for supporting said handset;

    an input device mounted within said compact casing for establishing communication with at least one of a plurality of distant communication terminals, said input device including a flat display screen having a presentation portion and a switching field portion, said presentation portion being provided for the display of graphical information and said switching field portion being provided for initiating the selection of a plurality of switching functions;

    transparent resistive coating means mounted above said flat display screen, said resistive coating means being electrically conductive;

    a processing unit in electrical communication with said input device for initiating the performance of said plurality of switching functions and for the display and distribution of said graphical information, said processing unit including means for displaying a dialing keypad on the presentation portion of said flat display screen enabling the dialing of said telephone set;

    circuit component means in circuit relation with said transparent resistive coating means for providing coordinate value electrical signals thereto;

    a pen electrically connected to said circuit component means and manually applied to said resistive coating means of said flat display screen for extracting the coordinate value electrical signals for selecting one of said plurality of switching functions, said plurality of switching functions including a dialing mode and a graphical presentation mode, said flat display screen being electrically touch sensitive and wherein said pen extracts electrical signals from said resistive coating means for identifying the location of said pen when applied to said presentation portion for inputting graphical information to said display screen in said graphical information mode and for selection of indicia on the displayed keypad for enabling dialing of said telephone set in said dialing mode;

    a component coder located within said circuit component means for receiving and digitizing said extracted signals and for transmitting said digitized signals to said processing unit for providing a pulse output; and

    a control circuit for controlling the distribution of said pulse output including an operating mode selection switch for selecting the mode of operation fo the communication terminal wherein said telephone set processing voice communications and said input device displaying graphical information are incorporated within said compact casing.

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