Joystick control device having cursor correcting function

• US 6,034,669 A
• Filed: 02/12/1998
• Issued: 03/07/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
• Original Assignee: Realtek Semiconductor Corp., Tigerex Enterprise Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Cheng, Fu-Yuan, Chen, Huai-Yi, Chiang, Ting-Chi
• Primary Examiner(s): Shankar, Vijay
• Application Number:
  US09/022,839
• Time in Patent Office: 754 Days
• Field of Search: 345/156, 345/157, 345/160, 345/161, 345/162, 345/163
• US Class Current: 345/161
• CPC Class Codes: G05G 2009/04759 Light-sensitive detector, e.g. photoelectric
• CPC Class Codes: G05G 9/047 the controlling member being movable by hand about orthogonal axes, e.g. joysticks for switches H01H25/04
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0383 Signal control means within the pointing device

Abstract

A joystick control device having cursor correcting function, in which the conventional adjustable resistor is replaced by a photoelectric element for detecting the movement of the joystick, thereby eliminates the ill effects caused by mechanical attrition of resistor. Additionally, the parameter drifts caused by IC manufacturing processes are corrected using shift correction of joystick; therefore, every individual mass-produced IC shows similar good behavior.

Claims

1. A joystick control device having cursor correcting function, comprising:

a photoelectric transducer, connecting to the joystick for transforming the light signal corresponding to the movement of the joystick into an one-byte electric digital signal;

a counter, connecting to said photoelectric transducer for transforming said digital signal coming from said photoelectric transducer into a bit sequence, wherein said bit sequence represents the movement of said joystick;

a latch, having an initial value therein and connecting to a feedback signal and a control signal, and determining whether or not said feedback signal is inputted to replace the prior value in accordance with said control signal;

an adder, receiving the output signals from said counter and said latch, adding said output signals, and outputting the result signal, said result signal being sent back to said latch; and

a cursor position indicator, receiving said result signal from said adder, and adjusting the parameter which is used for determining the position of the cursor in accordance with said result signal,

said initial value of said latch being used for centering the cursor on the screen when said joystick control device is first turned on, which is determined as follow;

said cursor position indicator controlling the cursor to sit at the center of a screen when said initial value is directly inputted into said cursor position indicator;

when proceeding the correcting function, said control signal of said latch controlling said feedback signal from said adder to be inputted into said latch for replacing the prior value therein;

the value stored within said latch being replaced properly or being conserved till said joystick control device being turned off;

the parameter drift of IC caused by manufacturing variation being corrected by shift correction of said joystick whenever said joystick control device is turned on, thereby ensures that the cursor sits at the center of a screen when said joystick is centered.

2. A joystick control device having cursor correcting function as claimed in claim 1, wherein said photoelectric transducer comprises mainly a photoelectric transistor and an A/D transducer, said photoelectric transistor partly connecting to said joystick for transforming a light signal into a current signal, said A/D transducer connecting to the output terminal of said photoelectric transistor for transforming the outputted current into a single-byte digital signal.

3. A joystick control device having cursor correcting function as claimed in claim 1, wherein said counter is an UP/DN counter which counts up when the digital signal from said photoelectric transducer is high and counts down when the digital signal from said photoelectric transducer is low.

4. A joystick control device having cursor correcting function as claimed in claim 1, wherein said latch is composed of a plurality of D flip-flops, said control signal being inputted into the CK terminal of each of said D flip-flops, while each bit of said feedback signal being inputted into the D terminal of each of said D flip-flops;

the waveform of said control signal being;

the value being low when said joystick control device is turned on, a short- time high value pulse signal being generated during inducing, and then returning to low-value.

5. A joystick control device having cursor correcting function as claimed in claim 1, wherein said cursor position indicator adjusts the output resistance according to the signal from said adder, and the position of the cursor is determined in accordance with said output resistance.

6. A joystick control device having cursor correcting function as claimed in claim 1, comprising two sets of said photoelectric transducer, counter, latch, adder, and cursor position indicator, each set receiving and outputting the signal corresponding to the X or Y direction, respectively.