JP2000276288A - Portable terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an inexpensive portable terminal facilitated in key operation for character conversion on the portable terminal. SOLUTION: Concerning the portable terminal, when alphabets are inputted from a vowel key 201 and a consonant key 202, these inputted Roman characters are converted to KANA. When the characters are continuously inputted, a KANA character string is converted to a sentence. These characters are displayed on a display 304 while being made into sentence or the like. Besides, they are outputted through a communication line. Since alphabet keys are divided into vowel and consonant, key operation is simplified and quick inputting is enabled. It is because KANA can be expressed by the combination of consonant key and vowel key. It can be realized without increasing the number of keys. When the auxiliary function of sonant mark or small letter is added, character inputting is further facilitated. A numeral and an alphabet can be smoothly switched while using a convert key. A character conversion candidate can be easily selected by a dial switch.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable terminal, and more particularly, to a portable terminal having an improved key assignment for inputting a pseudonym.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A key arrangement setting in a portable telephone called a conventional wireless terminal is basically as shown in FIG. That is, in such a conventional portable terminal, the keys 101 indicating the numerals 1 to 9 are arranged on the surface of the main body in 3 rows × 4 columns vertically and horizontally. When a text such as a mail is created with such a key arrangement setting, the key 101 is used. In this case, for example, a plurality of characters are set to the key of the numeral “1”, such as “a” line of hiragana and “A, B, C” of alphabet.

[0003]

For this reason, the same key must be pressed many times to display a target character, and the key operation is very troublesome. In addition, even with a portable terminal in which a keyboard mainly composed of character keys is arranged for creating a document, inconveniences such as an increase in the area of the terminal itself and the need to input with a special touch pen are required. Many. Furthermore, pocket boards for creating e-mails have recently become widespread. In this case, however, it is necessary to have another mobile terminal in addition to the mobile phone, which is also inconvenient and costly. .

[0004] It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the complexity of key operations when creating a document in a portable terminal as described above by a conventional method.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided an alphabet key provided on a main body surface and representing a kana vowel, an alphabet key provided on the main body surface and representing a kana consonant, The portable terminal is provided with a unit for converting Roman characters input with these alphabet keys into kana, and a unit for outputting the converted characters. The means for converting to kana recognizes a Roman character by a combination of a vowel and a consonant, and specifies a code of 50 sounds by the Roman character. This code is converted into a pseudonym by reading it from, for example, a ROM. This output means includes a monitor,
In addition to screen display on the display, transmission to the outside via communication means and the like are included.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an alphabet key provided on the surface of the main body and representing a vowel of a kana, an alphabet key provided on the surface of the main body and representing a consonant of a kana, and input using these alphabet keys. The portable terminal includes means for converting the converted Roman characters into kana, means for converting a character string of characters converted into kana into text, and means for outputting the converted text.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided the portable terminal according to the second aspect, wherein the means for outputting the converted character or the converted text includes a display disposed on a surface of the main body.

In the portable terminal according to the present invention, when an alphabet is input from each of the vowel keys and the consonant keys, a Roman character corresponding to a combination of the input alphabets is converted into a kana. For example, a pseudonym is read from a ROM or the like. Kana is converted into sentences by continuous input. These characters are output and displayed on a display or the like while being sentenced. As described above, the alphabet keys are divided into vowels and consonants, so that key operations are simplified and the input can be performed quickly.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A portable terminal according to the present invention is shown in FIG.
A specific description will be made based on the first embodiment shown in FIGS.
FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a first embodiment of a portable terminal according to the present invention in the form of a block of its function realizing means. FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration of the portable terminal. FIG. 3 shows a key arrangement of the portable terminal. FIG. 4 is a front view showing the entire portable terminal. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining an outline of character conversion in the mobile terminal. First, as shown in FIG. 4, the mobile terminal includes an elongated box-shaped main body 301, a plurality of key groups 302 arranged on the main body surface, and a liquid crystal display 304 also arranged on the main body surface. And a dial-shaped switch 303 arranged on the left side of the main body.
Inside the main body 301, a board on which a communication circuit and the like are mounted in addition to a microphone and a speaker is housed.

FIG. 1 shows a portable terminal including electronic circuits and the like inside the main body 301 as function implementing means. As shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of keys are 5 rows vertically and 3 rows horizontally.
Five vowel keys 201 for displaying the kana vowels in alphabetical order and nine consonant keys 202 for displaying the kana consonants in alphabetical order.
And one conversion key 203 for performing kana conversion and the like. These keys 201, 202, 203
At the same time, numerals (1 to 0) can be input together.
In FIG. 1 again, the input of these vowel keys 201 and consonant keys 202 is recognized as a Roman character input by the kana conversion means 205, and is converted from a Roman character to a kana.
At the same time, the character string of the kana continuously input is converted into a sentence by the sentence conversion means 206. The characters or sentences converted by these conversion means 205 and 206 are displayed on the display 304. Further, the data can be wirelessly transmitted as character data by the communication unit 305 by the input operation of the transmission key by the operator.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration for configuring these function realizing means. That is, key signals input from the keys 201, 202, and 203 are processed by the CPU 306. For example, it recognizes the input as Roman characters and converts it into kana. CPU
306 reads out the Japanese syllabary code stored in the ROM 307 based on these inputs, temporarily stores it in the RAM 308, and performs processing. Note that this CP is stored in the ROM 307.
The program executed in U306 is also stored.
After completion of the processing such as computation, the CPU 306 displays the resulting kana characters or sentences on the display 304 and, if necessary, outputs the data to a telephone line or the like via the communication means 305 via radio.

Hereinafter, the Roman character conversion operation of the present invention based on the configuration example shown in FIG. 3 will be described in detail. When expressing Japanese by normal Roman conversion, alphabets “A”, “I”, “U”, “E”, “O” representing vowels and alphabets “K”, “S”, “T” representing consonants are used. ",
This is performed in combination with “N”, “H”, “M”, “Y”, “R”, and “W”. For consonants, from the left,
・ ・ It corresponds as follows. Therefore, as a key setting, a key 201 representing a vowel, a key 202 representing a consonant,
A combination of the conversion keys 203 for performing the conversion of the described hiragana is arranged as in the configuration example of FIG. However, the arrangement of each key is not limited to this configuration example. Based on this, an example of the Japanese conversion method is shown below. If you want to input “Tokkyo” in Hiragana, use the combination of vowel key 201 and consonant key 202,
Input "T", "O", "K", "K", "Y", "O". For characters with voiced or semi-voiced characters such as "Denwa", first enter "T" and "E" in a combination of a vowel key and a consonant key, and display "te". Press once. By pressing the conversion key 203, a conversion list is displayed on the display 304 (FIG. 5).
From there, select the desired item and press the conversion key 203 again to confirm. The method of selecting the conversion item will be described later.

When inputting katakana, the operation is performed as follows. Assuming that "kana" is written, "K" and "A" are input with the vowel key and the consonant key, and "ka" is selected from the items using the conversion key 203 and determined. "N" is converted in the same way. To enter numbers, proceed as follows. First, the conversion key 203 is pressed without any input. In the vowel key 201 and the consonant key 202, one key is a number and an alphabet such as "3 / A".
There is one that corresponds. If the user presses the conversion key 203 without inputting anything, the two are switched. By pressing the conversion key 203 in such a state, the keys 201 and 201 are pressed.
02 is switched to a numeral to input a numeral. For example, when inputting "10", after switching the vowel key 201 and the consonant key 202 to the numeric side with the conversion key 203, "1" and "0" are input. In the above way,
Japanese conversion is performed, but this is only an example, and the conversion method is not limited to this.

An example of a method for selecting a conversion item will be described with reference to FIG. When the conversion key 302 is pressed, a list of conversion items as shown in FIG.
By rotating the dial switch 303, a desired item is selected by scrolling, and the conversion key 302 is pressed again to confirm. Also in this regard, the selection method is not limited to the above-described method, and it is also possible to determine with another function selection key.

FIG. 6 shows a key arrangement of a portable terminal according to a second embodiment of the present invention. This key layout is a key layout of 8 rows and 3 columns. The Roman character conversion operation in this case will be described in detail below. In this embodiment, the vowel key 501, the consonant key 502, the conversion key 50
In addition to 8, L representing the lowercase letter or the letter "L"
Key 503, a voice mark key 504 for adding a voice mark, a voice mark key 505 for adding a voice mark, a vowel / consonant /
ETC key 50 for displaying alphabets and pictograms other than the alphabet displayed by the L key
6. A NUM key 507 for switching between alphabets and numbers has been added. This makes it possible to convert hiragana to kanji and to display all alphabets. Also, the conversion efficiency is improved. A specific conversion example will be described below as in the case of the first embodiment.

First, in the case of inputting "TOKYO", "T", "T" is input using the vowel key 501 and the consonant key 502.
After inputting "O", "K", "K", "Y", "O" and the hiragana in Roman character conversion, a conversion key 508 is pressed to display a conversion list on the screen. Then, "Tokyo" is selected from the list, and the conversion key 508 is pressed again to confirm. Similarly, when it is desired to display "patent" in Chinese characters, "patent" may be selected from the list and confirmed. The same applies to the case of displaying “Tokyo” in katakana or “TOKYO” in alphabet. When inputting the amount including the cloud point, proceed as follows. For example,
If you enter "Denwa", first, "T", "E"
Is input to display "te", and the cloud point key 504 is pressed to convert to "de". After that, "N", "N",
Enter "W" and "A", display the conversion list with the conversion key 508, and press the conversion key 508 again to display "Denwa".
Confirm. The same is true for the semi-turbidity point. When converting to lower case, the L key 503 is used. For example, when inputting a lowercase "@", "L", "Y", "A"
Thus, the user may first press the L key 503 and then input the character to be represented in lowercase letters. The alphabets displayed on the keys are vowels, consonants, and small letters L, and do not cover all alphabets. Therefore, if you want to display an alphabet other than the one displayed on the key, use ET
Press the C key 506 to display a list of other characters, select from the list, and press the ETC key 506 again to confirm. In addition to the alphabet,
Make settings that include pictograms. Some of the vowel keys 501 and the consonant keys 502 have two keys, one for a number and the other for an alphabet. The NUM key 507 switches between the two. If it is desired to input a number, the user can press the NUM key 507 to switch the key to the numeral side and then input. In this way, almost all necessary characters can be expressed when creating a document such as a mail. Also in this case, this conversion method is only an example, and is not limited to this method.

[0017]

When writing a mail on a portable terminal, most of the mail is in Japanese. According to the present invention, the key setting for easily inputting the Japanese language is provided. Most characters can be represented by a combination of consonant keys and vowel keys without having to press the keys repeatedly. In addition, since only the minimum keys required for Japanese Roman character conversion are arranged, it can be realized with almost no increase in the number of keys. Further, in the second embodiment, in addition to the effects of the first embodiment, the input of characters is further facilitated by adding an auxiliary function such as a cloud point or a small letter. In addition, alphabets and pictograms other than the set characters can be used by using the ETC key. For this reason, the range of expression is expanded. Further, switching between numbers and alphabets can be smoothly performed using the NUM key. Further, by using a dial switch or the like, selection of a conversion candidate for the input character is facilitated. Therefore, there is an effect that the creation of a document can be more easily performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a portable terminal according to a first embodiment of the present invention by means of its function realizing means.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the mobile terminal according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a key layout of the portable terminal according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a front view showing the appearance of the portable terminal according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display screen of the portable terminal according to the first embodiment of the present invention for explaining a character conversion method.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a key layout of a portable terminal according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing a key arrangement in a conventional portable terminal.

[Explanation of symbols]

 201 vowel key, 202 consonant key, 205 kana conversion means, 206 sentence conversion means, 304 display, 305 communication means,

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04M 11/00 302

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An alphabet key provided on the surface of a main body and representing a vowel of a kana, an alphabet key provided on a surface of a main body and representing a consonant of a kana, and a Roman character inputted by these alphabet keys is converted into a kana. Means to
Means for outputting the converted character. 2. An alphabet key provided on the surface of the main body and representing a vowel of a kana, an alphabet key provided on the surface of the main body and representing a consonant of a kana, and a Roman character inputted by these alphabet keys is converted into a kana. Means to
A mobile terminal comprising: means for converting a character string formed by characters converted into kana into text; and means for outputting the converted text. 3. The portable terminal according to claim 1, wherein the means for outputting the converted character or the converted text includes a display disposed on a surface of the main body.