Infra-red data communications system for coupling a battery powered data entry device to a microcomputer

Claim 1

An infra-red data communications system for coupling a battery powered keyboard data entry device to a microcomputer, in which said keyboard data entry device comprises means, including a microprocessor, for developing, in response to each keystroke, a binary data signal stream representing a start bit followed by a predetermined fixed number of data bits, each binary data signal comprising a predetermined signal level for a fixed period, and for driving an infra-red generator to develop, from each binary data signal, a single burst of infra-red pulses, of which the first pulse corresponds to the leading edge of the binary data signal, said burst extending for a period substantially less than half of the period of the binary data signal, and in which the microcomputer includes means for detecting and amplifying said bursts of infra-red pulses, and signal generating means coupled to the output of the detecting and amplifying means and responsive to detection of an initial pulse in a received burst comprising, when propagation loss is encountered, at least one but less than all of the developed burst of pulses, to generate an output binary code signal comprising a predetermined signal level for said fixed period and having a leading edge corresponding to said initial pulse, said microcomputer further including a microprocessor responsive to the lagging edge of the output signal representing the start bit to generate a series of sampling pulses to sample the output signals representing the data bits.