Patent ID: 6386754
Filing Date: 2002-05-14
Classification: G04G

Abstract:
A crown control system for facilitating the operation of a timepiece embodying enhanced quadribalanced time displays, having at least second, third and fourth quarter positions and having markers in at least said second, third and fourth quarter positions, comprising:(a) a single crown displaceable between crown in and crown out positions relative to the timepiece and rotatable in clockwise and counterclockwise directions in either of said positions; (1) said crown when in the crown in position: (i) when repeatedly rotated in one of said directions being operable to turn on and off a light for illuminating/not illuminating the display; and (ii) when repeatedly rotated in the other of said directions being operable to activate and deactivate an alarm and an alarm symbol in the display to become audible at a preset time; and (2) said crown when in the crown out position: (iii) without prior activation of the alarm and the alarm symbol in the display, being operable to convert the display to conventional digital elapsed time, without the markers of enhanced quadribalanced time in the second, third and fourth quarter positions, thereby enabling the display to be set to real time by repeatedly rotating the crown in one of said directions to select and flash a time function and by repeatedly rotating the crown in the other of said directions to set the respective flashing functions; and (iv) with prior activation of the alarm and the alarm symbol, being operable to display enhanced quadribalanced time, without a display of seconds or flashing time values, thereby enabling the display to be set to a selected alarm time by repeatedly rotating the crown in one of said directions to select and flash a time function and by repeatedly rotating the crown in the other of said directions to set the respective flashing functions; and said crown when displaced back to the crown in position, after a setting procedure pursuant to 1(a)(2)(iii) above, being operable to automatically convert the display to the equivalent enhanced quadribalanced time; andsaid crown when displaced back to the crown in position, after an alarm setting procedure pursuant to 1(a)(2)(iv) above, being operable to retain the preset audible alarm and alarm symbol in the display.