Input key and input apparatus

Abstract

When the user moves a key top 50 of an input key 10a in a push direction or compositely moves the key top 50 in the up, down, left, or right (front, back, left, or right) direction in addition to the push direction, an upper electrode 20 as a first contact comes to contact two or more conducting pieces placed at different positions of a lower electrode 30 as a second contact in accordance with the moving directions of the five directions. Then a text selector selects one of five symbols assigned to the input key 10a, on the basis of conduction signals from the two or more conducting pieces in contact, whereby one symbol thus selected is inputted. Namely, the five symbols are selectively inputted by the simple input operation of simply moving the key top in the five directions.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to an input key and an input device for inputting information to be input. Specifically, it relates to an input key having a plurality of input information allocated thereto and an input device having the input key. Background technique [0002] Generally, in small portable electronic devices (portable terminals) such as mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), text information such as characters, symbols, and numbers can be input with a small number of input keys, and a plurality of text information can be allocated to the same input key. key. Here, an example in which hiragana characters, which are one type of Japanese character format, are assigned to input keys will be described. [0003] Japanese hiragana can be divided into a plurality of subgroups, and each subgroup consists of five characters. Regarding these subgroups, there are "あ row" group, "か row" group, "さ row" group, "た row" group... etc.; thi...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0007] However, the technology described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-237945 is applicable to the input keys of keyboards for personal computers, and it is difficult to apply directly to the input keys of portable electronic devices much smaller than the input keys.

In addition, since the number of characters that can be assigned to one input key is five or more, it is substantially difficult. For example, five characters of "あ" to "ぉ" in the "あ row" group cannot be assigned to one input key.

Images