Audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus using semiconductor memory

• US 5,610,774 A
• Filed: 03/04/1994
• Issued: 03/11/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 10/11/1991
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Koike, Tadashi, Hayashi, Kousou
• Primary Examiner(s): Sniezek, Andrew L.
• Application Number:
  US08/205,769
• Time in Patent Office: 1,103 Days
• Field of Search: 360/2, 360/72.1, 360/35.1, 360/9.1, 360/15, 360/8, 360/71, 358/341, 381/41, 381/51, 365/230.01, 365/195, 371/10.2, 434/317, 395/2.87, 395/2.79, 395/2.44, 395/2.69, 369/70
• US Class Current: 360/15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/346 Cards serving only as information carrier of service
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1008 Active credit-cards provided with means to personalise their use, e.g. with PIN-introduction/comparison system

Abstract

In an audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus, instruction information related to a document is recorded in a recording region of a semiconductor memory together with the document. In the semiconductor memory, flags related to a document portion and an instruction portion, and the addresses of the document and the instruction portions are provided. At the time of reproduction, the instruction portion is reproduced prior to reproduction of the document portion. When the content of the semiconductor memory is stored in a built-in memory in the apparatus, the instruction portion is stored before the document portion is stored. Since the instruction portion is reproduced prior to the document portion at the time of reproduction, the user does not have to retrieve the instruction portion.

Claims

1. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus utilizing a semiconductor memory, wherein

said semiconductor memory includes a plurality of addressable locations forming a first digital storing region for storing document and information data including an instruction related to the document data inserted within said document data, and a plurality of addressable locations forming a second digital storing region for storing digital data corresponding to address locations of said document data and address locations of said instruction in said first storing region and digital identification data corresponding to the information data, wherein said digital data of said second storing region are stored during the time of the storing of the corresponding document and information data of said first storing region, said apparatus further including

reference means for referring to the digital data in said second storing region for positioning data in said first storing region and controlling the recording/reproducing of document and information data in accordance with said digital data.

2. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus as recited in claim 1, further comprising,

reproduction means for reproducing the document data of said first storing region by referring to the digital data of said second region using said reference means when said document data is reproduced.

3. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus as recited in claim 2, wherein

said semiconductor memory comprises a memory card detachably mounted to said audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus.

4. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus as recited in claim 3, wherein

said memory card includes a batch erase type programmable ROM.

5. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus as recited in claim 3, wherein

audio sound-compressed data is written on said memory card.

6. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus as recited in claim 2, wherein

said reproduction means reproduces only said document information among the information recorded in said first storing region excluding said instruction data at said time of reproduction.

7. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus as recited in claim 2, wherein

a plurality of sets of document and information data are stored in said first storing region and a plurality of digital data corresponding respectively to each of said sets are stored in said second storing region,

the apparatus, further comprising, specifying means responsive to digital data recorded in said second storing region for specifying desired priority document information among said plurality of sets of document and information data, and

reproduction means for reproducing only said specified priority document information which is specified by said digital data.

8. An audio sound recording/reproducing system including a master machine and a slave machine, wherein

a memory card is detachably mountable to said master machine and slave machine, said memory card including,

a plurality of sequentially addressable memory locations forming a first storing region having a start address for storing information including a document and an instruction related to said document wherein said instruction is positioned at addressable locations within the document and a second storing region comprising another plurality of sequentially addressable memory locations, for storing the positions of said document and the addressable locations of the instruction within the document in said first storing region and identification data for said information in said first storing region and

said master machine including storage means for storing the contents of said memory card, and control means for controlling the operation of said storage means such that the instruction information which was stored in first sequentially addressable locations of said first storing region of the memory card with respect to said document is stored in said storage means at second addressable locations with respect to said document in the first storing region.

9. An audio sound recording/reproducing system as recited in claim 8, wherein

said storage means has first and second storage regions corresponding to said first and second storing regions of said memory card, and

said control means controls said storage means such that the position and identification data of said second storing region of said memory card is stored in said second storage region of said storage means and said instruction information and document information are stored in accordance with the data stored in said second storage region of said storage means.

10. An audio sound recording/reproducing apparatus for recording and reproducing document data having inserted instructions comprising,

a semiconductor memory including,

a first digital storing region for storing digitized document data containing inserted instruction data,

a second digital storing region for storing

i) addresses of said digitized document data,

ii) addresses of said inserted instruction data, and

iii) identification data related to said instruction data, and

a processing device for reproducing in a reproducing mode by reference to said second digital storing region data from said first digital storing region in accordance with first, said identification data, second, said addresses of inserted instruction data, and third, said addresses of digitized document data.

11. Apparatus as in claim 10, wherein said processing device for reproducing in reproducing said digitized document data from said first digital storing region skips over any inserted instructions.