Consumer electronics equipment combination consisting of a television receiver and of a video recording and/or reproducing apparatus

Claim 1

An improved consumer electronics equipment combination including a television receiver containing a control bus for control instructions and selecting information, an input device with a keyboard, a television control circuit connected to the control bus for adjusting the operating states of the television receiver selected by means of the input device, a data and address bus with a data storage connected thereto, and a character generator capable of being optionally connected to the input of a video signal amplifier circuit for the picture tube, and with a video recording and reproducing apparatus containing an interchangeable video information storage medium capable of being scanned, which is connected to a record-reproduce connector of the television receiver, whose control circuit for adjusting its operating state is connected via the record-reproduce connector to the control bus of the television receiver and whose video information input and output is connected to the video signal path of the television receiver via the record-reproduce connector, said improvement comprising: the video signal path (21) of the recording and/or reproducing apparatus (3), extending via the record-reproduce connector (2) of the television receiver (1), includes a signal path changeover switch (22) having a first switch position which connects the signal path to the video signal path (20) of the television receiver and a second switch position which connects the video signal path of the recording and/or reproducing apparatus, via a code converter (42), to the data and address bus (32), the control bus (16) is connected to a computer control circuit (41) including means in response to a computer instruction appearing at the output of the input device (8) or of the television control circuit (13) for switching the television receiver into a computer operational state, the storage medium (43) of the video recording and/or reproducing apparatus (3) includes at least one selectable user program (44), and the computer operational state of the television receiver connects the input (38) of the video signal amplifier circuit (6) to the output of the character generator (35), connects a processor module (30) and a computer module (33) to the control bus (16) and the data and address bus (32), switches the signal path changeover switch (22) to its second switch position, and connects the data outputs of the input device to the data and address bus (32) via a coupling circuit (46).