Apparatus for in-camera identity marking of film

Claim 1

In a camera having a camera body with respective front and rear ends, a background viewing screen unit carried on the rear end of said body, a film cassette for holding a rectangular-shaped strip of unexposed photographic film, said cassette being removably receivable in said body forwardly adjacent said viewing screen, and a frame member disposed in said body in front of said cassette, said frame member having a generally rectangular opening therein which registers with the strip of film and is defined by a correspondingly configured rectangular inner frame periphery, an encoder module for marking identification data on the film, the module being mountable on said frame at the inner periphery thereof and comprising a lightproof housing, the housing having a window therein which disposes in facing confrontation with an edge portion of a cassette held film strip, and electrically operated means for generating and projecting discrete light beams of identification characters through said window onto said film strip edge portion to expose an identification image thereon, said generating and projecting means including circuit components and terminals therefor associated with operation of said generating and projecting means, said frame member having complemental terminal connector means receptive of said terminals in at least one of said frame inner peripheral sides whereby said module can be removably mounted on said one inner peripheral side and electrical power potential available at said terminal connector means communicated to said generating and projecting means for operating same, the terminal connector means being such that said terminals are slidably movable therein for selectively slidably positioning said module at plural locations along said one inner peripheral side.