JPS627990B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

The present invention relates to an electronic watch with an alarm that has the function of playing a melody. More specifically, it relates to a means for obtaining a scale for playing a melody. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the general configuration of an alarm watch. First, the heart of the watch is an oscillation circuit 1 using a crystal oscillator, and its oscillation frequency has a value of ²ⁿ . i.e. 65536Hz,
Alternatively, 131072Hz etc. is common. Next, this oscillation output enters a frequency divider circuit 2 of more than 10 stages that successively reduces its frequency by 1/2, and is finally taken out as a 1 second signal. The second signal is converted into sexagesimal or decimal notation in the counter circuit 3 and integrated into hour, minute, and second signals. Each time signal is further encoded for digital display in a decoder 4, and is displayed on a display 6 such as a liquid crystal via a driver 5. On the other hand, for the alarm function, there is also an alarm time setting circuit 7, in which the alarm time is inputted by an external switch. The input signal is immediately encoded and compared with the current time in a time coincidence detection circuit 8. When a coincidence occurs, an electroacoustic transducer 9 notifies the encoded signal as a buzzer. The above is a normal configuration of an electronic watch with an alarm, but the notification sound produced by such a configuration is limited to a single pitch, and is very practical. Therefore, the present invention takes into consideration the special characteristics of an electronic watch with an alarm, that is, its functionality plus hobbies and preferences, and realizes an electroacoustic conversion function that plays a melody to an alarm. FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of the electroacoustic transducer section of FIG. 1 according to the present invention. That is, the oscillation circuit 10, which is the same as the time standard shown in FIG. 1, is used as a reference signal source, and the output thereof is connected to a programmable counter 11 which takes out the divided frequency appropriately corresponding to the musical scale. The divided output of the programmable counter is
Memory circuit 15 such as ROM that stores arbitrary songs
Changes will be made one after another according to the instructions. For memory reading, etc., the frequency division circuit 14 obtains a frequency divided output based on the standard time signal, and the address of the memory section is specified, that is, the frequency division number that determines the pitch of the song. and the memory read speed, i.e.
The tempo of the song or the length of the sound is controlled by this frequency division output. Therefore, the output of the programmable counter 11 is a series of a plurality of frequencies having different durations, that is, an electrical output corresponding to a melody. Next, this output is transformed into a driving waveform suitable for the speaker 13 through the driver 12, and after being applied with an appropriate amplifier, is extracted from the speaker 13 as sound. As mentioned above, the present invention is characterized in that the time standard and scale standard are the same for an alarm that plays such a melody, and in particular, the standard frequency is 1/( 64×2 ^m )(m
is an integer) The divided frequency is the C tone and 64×
The feature is that each chromatic scale corresponds to a frequency divided by a division ratio of 1/integer using an integer between 2 ^m and 64 x 2 ^m-1 . Table 1 shows the frequencies for each note of the chromatic scale based on international conventions, and _C6 note = 1024Hz, C7 note = _1024Hz , based on the drift used in clocks.
This is a comparison of each frequency of the chromatic scale at 2048Hz, as well as the standard divided output frequency of a clock.
What you can see from this table is that the standard frequency of the clock is 2.
The divided output obtained from ⁿ Hz is 2 ¹⁰ = 1024 Hz, or 2 ¹¹ = 2048 Hz, which is the international convention C ₆ =
1047Hz, which is very close to C ₇ =2094Hz. Therefore, the frequency divided output is 1024Hz or 2048Hz
It can be said that it is desirable to make the C sound approximate to a clock alarm. Next, form a chromatic scale based on this approximate C note, and calculate its frequency and clock standard 65536.
If you compare the frequencies of the integer frequency divided outputs of Hz or the clock standard 131072Hz, you will see that these values are very close to each other.

【table】

[Table] And the highest division ratio for either standard is 64
You can compose a chromatic scale. Moreover, the maximum pitch is less than 1/8 pitch, so it is in a range that cannot be discerned by the untrained ear. In other words, the minimum necessary performance scale for a clock alarm can be obtained by dividing the frequency by 64 at the maximum, and this is also the feature of the present invention. In other words, by using the clock standard as the musical scale standard, it is possible to achieve the necessary and sufficient effects with the minimum necessary design, not only in the construction and manufacture of practical circuits, but also in the actual use of alarms. can be mentioned. Of course, it goes without saying that if the frequency division ratio is increased to 128 times this value and a chromatic scale is formed in the same way, a more accurate pitch can be obtained than by the means of the present invention. However, the alarm scale necessary for the present invention does not have a characteristic that causes a problem even if there is some distortion.
On the other hand, since the configuration of a practical melody circuit becomes complicated and the number of elements increases, it will no longer be considered a desirable configuration for an electronic circuit. As described above, the present invention forms a musical scale using the standard for clocks, and its circuit configuration is the simplest, and has sufficient performance to play a melody as an alarm sound. It provides the means. Therefore, the present invention is effective in bringing out the advantages of manufacturing an electronic timepiece with an alarm from both aspects of use, and improving the functions, hobbies, etc. of an electronic timepiece with an alarm, especially an electronic wristwatch with an alarm.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic wristwatch with an alarm, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the structure of the electroacoustic transducer shown in FIG. 1...Oscillation, 2...Divide, 3...Counter, 4
...Decoder, 5...Driver, 6...Display,
7... Alarm setting, 8... Match detection, 9... Electro-acoustic conversion, 10... Oscillation, 11... Programmable counter, 12... Driver, 13... Speaker, 14... Frequency division, 15... Memory .

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An oscillation circuit having an oscillation frequency of 2 ⁿ Hz (n is a natural number) serving as a time standard source, a memory circuit for storing melody information, and receiving the melody information read from the memory circuit and converting the oscillation frequency into a musical scale. A programmable counter that divides the frequency into a corresponding frequency, and means for playing a melody in response to the output of the programmable counter, and the memory circuit divides the oscillation frequency by 1/1.
(64×2 ^m ) (m is an integer) The divided frequency is the C sound, and the integer fraction using an integer between 64×2 ^m and 64×2 ^m-1 is used. An electronic clock with an alarm, characterized in that the frequency divided by the frequency ratio is made to correspond to each chromatic scale, and the frequency division ratio corresponding to the melody is stored.