ELECTRONIC TIMEPIECE

Abstract: An electronic timepiece includes an oscillator circuit (1) which generates a reference signal for timekeeping, which is applied through a variable frequency divider (2) to a motor control (3). A rate measuring pulse generating circuit (27) produces pulses (P H ) for a motor control (3) through an AND gate (28) whose opening is controlled by a zero detecting circuit (26) to modulate the rate measuring pulse interval. A rate displaying oscillator circuit (20) for converting and displaying a rate oscillates at a frequency which is at least a multiple of the frequency of the oscillating circuit (1) so that, even when the period of a logical regulator is extended in order to improve the resolving power of the logical regulation, the average rate of the logical regulator can be measured with a commercially available measuring device.

Description: The present invention relates to electronic timepieces including an oscillator circuit which generates a reference signal for timekeeping and the output of which is regulatable in a logical regulation based on a regulation period. The regulation resolving power of temperature-compensated electronic timepieces is required to be an exceedingly small value, that is, 4ms/d or 8ms/d, in order to realise high precision. To achieve such resolving power by means of a logical regulator, the operating period of the logical regulator must be 640 seconds or 320 seconds. However, as the maximum time which can be measured with conventional measuring devices which are obtainable on the market has heretofore been 10 seconds, no regulation which involves a resolving power of 4ms/d can be effected by a logical regulator. Accordingly, it is conventional practice to adopt, for example, a method wherein the load capacity of an oscillator circuit is switched, such as that shown in JA-A-35007/1971. The above-described method in which an oscillator circuit is directly actuated has the disadvantages that oscillating characteristics are undesirably changed to a substantial extent and that it is necessary additionally to carry out an operation of adjusting the amount of regulation when the oscillator circuit is actuated. In addition, as an analog quantity is handled to adjust the amount of regulation, errors are readily generated in adjustment, and it is therefore impossible to effect temperature compensation of high precision. To solve the above-described problems, according to the present invention, minute regulation is also carried out by a logical regulator, and a rate converting and displaying function is provided for displaying an average rate. It is necessary, in order to obtain a resolving power of 4ms/d, to carry out a logical regulator operation in a period of 640 seconds (1/(32768 x 640)). However, the maximum time which can be measured with commercially available measuring devices is 10 seconds as described above. The invention provides for converting and displaying an average rate obtained by a logical regulation within a short period of time, said logical regulation being carried out in a period longer than a logical regulation period which is generally employed. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a frequency which is 64 times the oscillation frequency of a reference signal, i.e. 32 kHz, is prepared in an oscillator circuit for displaying a rate in order to display an average rate of a logical regulation carried out in a period of 640 seconds, and a duration between each pair of adjacent rate measuring pulses is modulated for a time corresponding to a 640-second logical regulation to display the average rate. For instance, to display a rate of -1/(32768 x 640), rate measuring pulses which are output in a period of 10 seconds are output in such a manner that the rise of each pulse is delayed by a time corresponding to one cycle of an oscillation frequency which is 64 times 32 kHz. In a published article by H. Effenberger entitled "Automatisches Stell-, Synchronisier- und Reguliersystem für Quarzuhren", on pages 317 to 322 of the Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Chronometry, No. 3, September 1979, Conference No. E 3,3, Geneva, Switzerland, there is disclosed an automatic setting, synchronising and regulating system for quartz watches. in this system, a quartz watch to be set, synchronised and regulated is set on the receiver side of a transmission device with an accurate reference clock and oscillator. Timing signals are transmitted, preferably by infra-red data transmission, to micro-processor apparatus in the watch and are used to set, synchronise and regulate the watch. The watch can be re-set from time to time by bringing it back into transmission receiving relationship with the transmission device. From one aspect, the invention comprises an electronic timepiece including an oscillator circuit which generates a reference signal for timekeeping and the output of which is regulatable in a logical regulation based on a regulation period, characterised by a rate displaying oscillator circuit having an oscillation frequency which is at least a multiple of the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit and which displays an average rate of a logical regulation carried out in a second regulation period which is the multiple of the first mentioned regulation period, rate measuring pulses of the first mentioned regulation period which is a duration corresponding to the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit, being converted to the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit. From another aspect, the invention comprises an electronic timepiece including an oscillator circuit which generates a reference signal for timekeeping and the output of which is regulatable in a logical regulation based on a regulation period T₁, characterised by an additional logical regulation for the output of the oscillator circuit based on a second longer regulation period T₂, a rate displaying oscillator circuit whose oscillation frequency is at least T₂/T₁ times the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit, means for digitising the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit, a register for holding data which is obtained by adding regulation data items concerning the second logical regulation in the period of the first logical regulation; a calculating circuit for calculating a sum total of said regulation data items and also calculating rate displaying data from the sum total of data and numerical data concerning the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit; and a rate measuring pulse modulating circuit which modulates the time interval of rate measuring pulses on the basis of the rate displaying data , whereby the rate measuring pulses are output in the first regulation period T₁ which is of a duration corresponding to the oscillation frequency of the oscillation circuit, the rate measuring pulses being converted to the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit and the rate measuring pulse interval is modulated to display an average rate. According to another aspect of the invention there is provided an electronic timepiece having two logical regulation functions, that is, a first logical regulation based on a first regulation period T₁ and a second logical regulation based on a period T₂ longer than said first regulation period, wherein the improvement comprises a rate displaying oscillator circuit whose oscillation frequency is T₂/T₁ or more times the oscillation frequency of an oscillator circuit which generates a reference signal for timekeeping; means for digitising the oscillation output of said rate displaying oscillator circuit; a register for holding data which is obtained by adding regulation data items concerning said second logical regulation in the period of said first logical regulation; a calculating circuit for calculating a sum total of said regulation data items and also calculating rate displaying data from said sum total of data and numerical data concerning the oscillation output of said rate displaying oscillator circuit; and a rate measuring pulse modulating circuit which modulates the time interval of rate measuring pulses on the basis of said rate displaying data, whereby said rate measuring pulses are output in said first regulation period T₁ by actuating an external operation switch, which first regulation period is of a duration corresponding to the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit, and which rate measuring pulses are converted to the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit, and the rate measuring pulse interval is modulated to display an average rate. How the invention can be carried into effect is hereinafter particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:- Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 shows an example of the calculation of R = K(n+0.5)²; Figure 3 shows the meaning of the inversion of the calculation result; Figure 4 shows an example of the calculation of rate displaying data; Figure 5 shows an example of calculation of rate displaying data in the case where both the data S and the frequency digitising counter data are maximum; Figure 6 shows an embodiment in which the frequency digitising counter and the 8-bit presettable down counter are combined together; Figure 7 is a block diagram illustrating the calculating circuit in detail; Figure 8 shows the temperature data n + 0.5; and Figure 9 shows the relationship between the rate measuring pulse and the output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit. In one embodiment of the present invention (Fig. 1), an oscillator circuit 1 in the form of a crystal oscillator operates to produce a reference signal at 32 kHz for timekeeping, which is frequency-divided by a variable frequency divider 2, and the frequency-divided signal is supplied to a motor control 3 which drives a stepping motor (not shown), and to a control circuit 4 which controls various circuits in a time controlling manner. A temperature-sensitive oscillator 5 is in the vicinity of the oscillator circuit 1 and acts as a temperature detecting circuit whose oscillation frequency f T varies with temperature. The output of the oscillator 5 is connected as one input of an AND gate 6 whose other input is a gate signal from a gate signal generating circuit 7. The time duration of the gate signal from the circuit 7 is changed in accordance with a value A output from a gradient adjusting circuit 8. During the period when the gate signal output from the circuit 7 is up, the signal output from the oscillator 5 is output from the AND gate 6 to a temperature digitising counter 9. An initial value for the counter 9 is set in accordance with a value B output from an offset adjusting circuit 10. As a result, the numerical data remaining in the temperature digitising counter 9 may be represented by the following equation: m = A × τ × f T + B - 2 ℓ × j where: τ is a unit time for a gate signal output from the gate signal generating circuit 7; ℓ represents the number of bits in the temperature digitising counter 9; f T represents the output frequency of the temperature-sensitive oscillator 5; and j represents the number of overflow occurrences. If the temperature digitising counter 9 has a 10-bit construction, m can vary between 0 and 1023. In order to make the contents of the counter 9 equal to 512, which is a mid-point value of m , at the zero temperature coefficient temperature (hereinafter abbreviated to T p ) of the crystal oscillator which constitutes the oscillator circuit 1, an adjustment of A and B is carried out. In order that m may change symmetrically on the high- and low-temperature sides with respect to T p , the output m of the temperature digitising counter 9 is inverted in a turning circuit 11 by examining the highest significant bit, thereby preparing temperature data n . When n is prepared by inverting m , 0.5 is added to 9-bit data so that n changes symmetrically on the low-and high-temperature sides with respect to T p . This is shown in Figure 8. The addition of 0.5 is performed with a clocked C MOS 12 which delivers the 9-bit output from the turning circuit 11 onto input buses A and B of a calculating circuit 13. The calculating circuit 13 is supplied with a 10-bit input and delivers a 10-bit output, the circuit 13 being able to perform both addition and multiplication. The temperature data n is information which represents the amount by which a particular temperature is offset from T p of the crystal oscillator of the oscillator circuit 1. Therefore, temperature compensation data R can be calculated by squaring n and multiplying the squared n by a certain coefficient K. The coefficient K is a value which is determined by the resolving power of regulation, the secondary temperature coefficient of the crystal oscillator and the temperature coefficient of the temperature-sensitive oscillator, the coefficient K being 1/256 in the case of this embodiment. Subtraction is effected by shifting bits, that is, selecting bits which are to be employed. Figure 2 shows an example of calculation of the temperature compensation data R = K (n + 0.5)². Ten bits as the result of calculation are output from the calculating circuit 13. This calculation result is data representing the amount by which a particular rate is behind the rate at T p . The logical regulation in this embodiment is to retard the rate. Therefore, the four high-order bits in the calculation result are inverted by an inverting circuit 14, while the six low-order bits are inverted in an inverting circuit 15, and the high-order four bit data is latched by a 4-bit register 16, while the loworder six bit data is latched by a 6-bit register 17. The meaning of this inversion is illustrated in Figure 3. The temperature compensation data items which are respectively latched by the 4-bit register 16 and the 6-bit register 17 are input to a preset circuit 18 which sets a frequency-division ratio for the variable frequency divider circuit 2. The contents of the register 17 are also applied through a clocked C MOS 34 to the input bus A of the calculating circuit 13. The high-order temperature compensating data which is latched by the 4-bit register 16 changes the frequency-division ratio for the variable frequency-divider circuit 2 in a period of 10 seconds in response to the operation of the control circuit 4. The low-order data which is latched by the 6-bit register 17 changes the frequency-division ratio for the variable frequency divider circuit 2 in a period of 640 seconds. As a result, the data latched by the 4-bit register 16 is used for regulation with a resolving power of 1/(32768 × 10), while the data latched by the 6-bit register 17 is utilised for regulation with a resolving power of 1/(32768 × 640). Normally, temperature compensation is carried out by the above-described operation. However, in this normal operative state, the logical regulation is carried out in a period of 640 seconds; therefore, an average rate cannot be measured with a commercially available measuring device. Accordingly, one embodiment of the present invention has a rate measuring mode which enables an average rate to be measured in a period of 10 seconds by turning ON an external operation switch 19. When the external operation switch 19 is turned ON, the motor control 3 inhibits the output of normal pulses for driving a stepping motor and activates a rate measuring pulse generating circuit 27 to output rate measuring pulses P H by a period of 10 seconds. The control circuit 4 controls various circuits for modulating the pulse spacing of rate measuring pulses in time and in conjunction with the above-described normal operation. The logical regulation carried out in a period of 10 seconds on the basis of the data latched by the 4-bit register 16 is also performed in the rate measuring mode. The logical regulation carried out in a period of 640 seconds on the basis of the data latched by the 6-bit register 17 is inhibited in the rate measuring mode, and an amount of regulation attained by the 640-second logical regulation is displayed using a signal output from a rate displaying oscillator circuit 20. The rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 has an oscillation frequency which is at least a multiple of the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit 1. The multiple is T₂/T₁ or more, where T₂ is the longer of the two logical regulation periods, T₂ and T₁, and in this case 640 and 10. The oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit 20 may vary and its effective range may need to be limited by the bit-size of counters and circuits used in the restricted space available. In this case, it is normally within the range 2.097152MHz and 8.388607MHz. First, the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is measured by a frequency digitising counter 21. The output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is supplied to AND gates 22 and 33. The other input of the AND gate 22 is supplied with pulses having a time duration of 1/4096 seconds from the control circuit 4. Within the period of 1/4096 seconds, the output frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is input to the frequency digitising counter 21. The frequency digitising counter 21 is an 11-bit binary counter. Ten high-order bits of the output from the counter 21 are input as measurement data to the input bus A of the calculating circuit 13 through a clocked C MOS 23. A 6-bit register 24 latches the six low-order bits of the calculation result of the calculating circuit 13 and applies them through a clocked C MOS 35 to the input bus B of the calculating circuit. Next, the contents of the 6-bit register 17 which latches an amount of regulation attained by the 640-second logical regulation and the contents of the 6-bit register 24 are added together in the calculating circuit 13, and the result of addition is latched by the 6-bit register 24. The 6-bit register 24 is reset when the external operation switch 19 is turned ON. Accordingly, the initial value for the 6-bit register 24 is 0, and data items concerning the logical regulation carried out in a period of 640 seconds are totalled every time calculation is carried out. The sum total of 640-second logical regulation data items will hereinafter be referred to simply as "data S". Next, data for displaying a rate is calculated on the basis of the data S and the contents of the frequency digitising counter 21 which represent measurement data from the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 described above. Assuming that the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is 2097152Hz which is exactly 64 times the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit 1 for easier understanding, the frequency digitising counter 21 inputs the binary number 256 through the C MOS 23 to the input bus A of the calculating circuit 13. If the contents of the 6-bit register 24 latching the data S concerning the 640-second logical regulation represent "1", the calculating circuit 13 calculates 1 × S/256 and outputs "1". An example of this calculation is shown in Figure 4. With this timing, an 8-bit presettable down counter (hereinafter abbreviated as "8-bit PSD") 25 is set by the output from the calculating circuit 13. The contents of the 8-bit PSD 25 are detected by a zero detecting circuit 26, and when the contents are not "0", the output from a "0" detecting circuit 26 applied to an AND gate 28 changes to low. The output from circuit 26 is also inverted by inverter 29 and supplied to the AND gate 33. Thereafter, a rate measuring pulse PH is output from the rate measuring pulse generating circuit 27 to the AND gates 33 and 28. When the output from the circuit 26 is low and a rate measuring pulse P H is generated, and the AND gate 33 opens and the 8-bit PSD 25 counts down in response to the oscillated output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20. If the contents of the 8-bit PSD 25 are set at "1", then when the 8-bit PSD 25 counts one shot of the output from the circuit 20, the contents of the 8-bit PSD 25 change to "0" and the output from the "0" detecting circuit 26 goes high and the inverter 29 functions so that the output from the circuit 20 is blocked by the AND gate 33. The rate measuring pulse P H , which was blocked by the AND gate 28 while the output from the "0" detecting circuit 26 was low, is now input to the motor control 3 in such a manner that the rise of the pulse P H is retarded by a time corresponding to one cycle of the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20. The motor control 3 outputs the rate measuring pulse P H to the stepping motor as a rate information. More specifically, an average rate of -1/(32768 × 640) of the 640-second logical regulation is displayed in a period of 10 seconds by retarding the rise of the pulse by a time corresponding to one cycle of a frequency which is 64 × 32768. Thus, in this embodiment, the 8-bit PSD 25, the "0" detecting circuit 26 and the AND gates 33 and 28, constitute in combination a rate measuring pulse modulating circuit. A rate measuring pulse P H which rises when 10 seconds has elapsed after one rate measuring pulse P H has been output is output after being delayed by a time corresponding to two cycles of the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 because the data S concerning the 640-second logical regulation is 2. Accordingly, when the 640-second logical regulation data is 1, the rate measuring pulse interval is made longer than the period of normal rate measuring pulses P H , and a subsequent pulse is output after being delayed by a time corresponding to an amount of regulation effected by the 640-second logical regulation, i.e., -1/(32768 × 640), that is, one cycle of the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 in the above-described example. If this operation is continued, the size of the data S concerning the 640-second logical regulation may exceed the size of the 6-bit register 24 for latching the data S. In this embodiment, because the 640-second logical regulation and the 10-second logical regulation are employed in combination, when the data S concerning the 640-second logical regulation reaches 64, it becomes equal to the amount of regulation made by the 10-second logical regulation (1/(32768 × 10) = 64/(32768 × 640)). Therefore, at the time at which the data S is calculated, the seventh bit on the output bus of the calculating circuit 13 is latched by a latch 30, and when the output of the latch 30 is high, the 10-second logical regulation is activated for 1/(32768 × 10) by the preset circuit 18. When the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is 64 or less times the oscillation frequency circuit 1 due, for example, to lowering in voltage, it becomes impossible to display a rate by means of rate measuring pulses P H having a period of 10 seconds. Therefore, when the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is measured with the frequency digitising counter 21, the fact that the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is 64 or less times that of the oscillator circuit 1 is detected by a gate circuit 31, and this information is latched by a latch 32 whose output is to the motor control 3. When the output of the latch 32 is high, the display of a rate cannot be effected by means of the rate measuring pulses P H . In such a case, the motor control 3 displays the fact that the lifetime of the battery has expired so that rate measuring pulses P H are not output. If it were possible to set the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 so as to be precisely Y times the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit 1, it would be unnecessary to measure the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20. In practice, however, there are variations in the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit 1, and the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 cannot employ a crystal oscillator which can be expected to oscillate precisely due to the limited space for the electronic timepiece and there are therefore considerable variations in the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20. Accordingly, it is necessary to measure the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20. In this embodiment, the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is allowed to range from 2097152Hz to 8388607Hz. Because the input bus of the calculating circuit 13 has a 10-bit construction, the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 needs to be converted to binary numbers 0 to 1023. The AND gate 22 which controls the input of a frequency to the frequency digitising counter 21 is supplied with pulses having a time duration of 1/4096 seconds from the control circuit 4. As a result, the contents of the frequency digitising counter 21 represent the following numbers in accordance with the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20: when the frequency is 2097152Hz, 2097152/4096 = 512; and when the frequency is 8388607Hz, 8388607/4096 = 2048. As the oscillation frequency at its upper limit exceeds 2¹⁰ = 1024, the frequency digitising counter 21 has an 11-bit construction, and the ten high-order bits thereof are used as measurement data. In consequence, measurement data of 256 represents 2.09 MHz; and 1023 represents 8.38MHz. The lower limit of the allowable frequency range, that is, 2097152Hz, is determined by the regulation period of the 640-second logical regulation according to this embodiment. When the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is lower than the lower-limit value, it is impossible to display a rate in a period of 10 seconds. For this reason, the gate circuit 31 is provided to detect the fact that the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is lower than the lower-limit value. The gate circuit 31 is a 2-input NOR gate which is connected to the tenth and eleventh bit terminals of the frequency digitising counter 21. When the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 is 2097151Hz, which is lower than the lower-limit value, both the tenth and eleventh bits of the frequency digitising counter 21 are low and the output of the gate circuit 31 is therefore high. This high signal is latched by the latch 32 in response to a clock signal delivered from the control circuit 4. When the signal output from the latch 32 is high, the motor control 3 stops the output of rate measuring pulses P H . The reason why the 8-bit PSD 25 has an 8-bit construction is that data which is to be set in the 8-bit PSD 25 is calculated on the basis of the data S concerning the 640-second logical regulation which is latched by the 6-bit register 24 and 10-bit data output from the frequency digitising counter 21. Figure 5 shows an example of the calculation performed when each of the data items is a maximum. As shown in Figure 5, the maximum value for the rate displaying data is 251, and therefore 8 bits are needed for the 8-bit PSD 25. Errors may be generated in a rate displaying operation. There are two kinds of error, that is, one which may be generated during quantisation as will be understood from the calculation example shown in Figure 5, and the other which may be generated due to the fact that the oscillation of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 and the rise of each rate measuring pulse P H are asynchronous with respect to each other. The quantisation error is about 0.75 at maximum as shown in Figure 5. The error, which is generated due to the fact that the fall of the oscillation waveform of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 and the rise of the rate measuring pulse P H are asynchronous with respect to each other, may be considered to be a value corresponding to one cycle of the oscillation of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20, at maximum, as shown in Figure 9. When the rise of the rate measuring pulse P H and the fall of the output waveform of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 are synchronous with respect to each other as shown by the waveform 9B the error is 0. However, as the rate measuring pulse P H and the output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 are asynchronous with respect to each other as shown by the waveform 9A, there is a possibility that an error may be generated which corresponds to one cycle of the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 at maximum. Accordingly, there may be generated a total of errors which corresponds to about 1.75 cycles of the oscillation of the rate displaying oscillator circuit 20 at maximum. This error is about 7 ms/d in terms of rate. Errors at this level can be ignored in practical use. Figure 6 shows another embodiment in which the frequency digitising counter and the 8-bit PSD are combined together. The reference numerals in Figure 6 respectively correspond to those shown in Figure 1. The reference symbol P/S denotes a parallel-serial switching signal, TL denotes a latch signal, SET denotes a set signal for setting a frequency digitising counter to an initial value, WIND denotes pulses having a duration of 1/4096, and CL denotes a clock signal supplied to a latch circuit 32, all supplied from the control circuit 4. Figure 7 is a block diagram showing the calculating circuit 13 in detail. The calculating circuit 13 is of the general type which executes calculation from a low-order bit toward a high-order bit, and description thereof is also omitted. As has been described above, the present invention enables the average rate of a logical regulator to be measured with a conventional, commercially available measuring device, even when the logical regulator is employed to perform a minute regulation which requires a high degree of precision. Since a rate of a logical regulation which is carried out over a relatively long period cannot conventionally be displayed within a short time, it has heretofore been impossible to use a stable logical regulator for a minute regulation. It is usual practice to adopt, as a means for replacing a logical regulator, a method wherein an oscillator circuit is directly controlled, for example, a method wherein the load capacity of an oscillator circuit is switched with time. Such a conventional method causes oscillating conditions of the oscillator circuit to change by a large margin, which means that no stable operation can be expected. In addition, the usual practice needs an adjusting operation for absorbing variations in e.g., the load capacity. In contrast, the present invention has no need of actuating the oscillator circuit and therefore enables it to be used in a stable state. It is a further advantage that, as the logical regulator operates digitally, it is unnecessary to conduct any adjusting operation.

Claims: An electronic timepiece including an oscillator circuit (1) which generates a reference signal for timekeeping and the output of which is regulatable in a logical regulation based on a regulation period, characterised by a rate displaying oscillating circuit (20) having an oscillation frequency which is at least a multiple of the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit (1) and which displays an average rate of a logical regulation carried out in a second regulation period which is a multiple of the first mentioned regulation period, rate measuring pulses of the first mentioned regulation period which is of a duration corresponding to the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit (1), being converted to the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit (20). An electronic timepiece as claimed in claim 1, characterised in that rate measuring pulses which are output in a first mentioned regulation period, have their rise delayed by a time corresponding to a number of cycles of the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit according to the logical regulation required. An electronic timepiece including an oscillator circuit (1) which generates a reference signal for timekeeping and the output of which is regulatable in a logical regulation based on a regulation period T₁, characterised by an additional logical regulation for the output of the oscillator circuit (1) based on a second longer regulation period T₂, a rate displaying oscillator circuit (20) whose oscillation frequency is at least T₂/T₁ times the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit (1), means (21) for digitising the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit (20), a register for holding data which is obtained by adding regulation data items concerning the second logical regulation in the period of the first logical regulation; a calculating circuit (13) for calculating a sum total of said regulation data items and also calculating rate displaying data from the sum total of data and numerical data concerning the oscillation output of the rate displaying oscillator circuit; and a rate measuring pulse modulating circuit (25, 26, 27, 28, 33) which modulates the time interval of rate measuring pulses on the basis of the rate displaying data , whereby the rate measuring pulses are output in the first regulation period T₁ which is of a duration corresponding to the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit (1), the rate measuring pulses being converted to the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit (20) and the rate measuring pulse interval is modulated to display an average rate. An electronic timepiece according to claim 3, characterised by means (31,32) to detect that the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit (20) is less than T₂/T₁ times the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit (1) which generates the reference signal for timekeeping, and to inhibit the effect of the rate measuring pulses upon such detection. An electronic timepiece having two logical regulation functions, that is, a first logical regulation based on a first regulation period T₁ and a second logical regulation based on a period T₂ longer than said first regulation period, characterised by a rate displaying oscillator circuit (20) whose oscillation frequency is T₂/T₁ or more times the oscillation frequency of an oscillator circuit (1) which generates a reference signal for timekeeping; means (21) for digitising the oscillation output of said rate displaying oscillator circuit (20); a register for holding data which is obtained by adding regulation data items concerning said second logical regulation in the period of said first logical regulation; a calculating circuit (13) for calculating a sum total of said regulation data items and also calculating rate displaying data from said sum total of data and numerical data concerning the oscillation output of said rate displaying oscillator circuit; and a rate measuring pulse modulating circuit (25, 26, 27, 28, 33) which modulates the time interval of rate measuring pulses on the basis of said rate displaying data, whereby said rate measuring pulses are output in said first regulation period T₁ by actuating an external operation switch, which first regulation period is of a duration corresponding to the oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit (1), and which rate measuring pulses are converted to the oscillation frequency of the rate displaying oscillator circuit (20), and the rate measuring pulse interval is modulated to display an average rate.

Inventors: INOUE, YUICHI, MASAKI, HIROYUKI, ODAGIRI, HIROYUKI
Applicants: SEIKO INSTRUMENTS INC.
Application year: 1987
Main classification: G04G3
IPC codes: G04F5, G04G3, G04D7