Recording and/or reproducing system and data backup system

Abstract: A recording and/or reproducing system has a recording and/or reproducing section and an interfacing unit. The recording and/or reproducing section records and/or reproduces digital data or digital signals on or from a loaded recording medium, such as a magnetic tape. The interfacing unit has a first input/output section for exchanging data and/or signals with an external equipment and a second input/output section for exchanging data and/or signals with the recording and/or reproducing section. The interfacing unit converts data and/or signals supplied from the recording/reproducing section through the second input/output section and sends the converted data and/or signals through the first input/output section to the external information equipment, while converting data and/or signals supplied through the first input/output section from the external information equipment and sending the converted data and/or signals through the second input/output section to the recording and/or reproducing section.

Description: BACKGROUND The present invention relates to a recording and/or reproducing system and a data backup system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a recording and/or reproducing system employing a recording medium and a data backup system employing a recording medium. In general, there is known a data backup system employing a data backup device called a data streamer, for example, in which data backup for a host computer is done using a magnetic tape as a recording medium. On the other hand, standardization of IC memory cards is proceeding and IC memory cards of the credit card size, termed a PC card, conforming to the standard design statements of Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA), an organization for standardization of U. S. A., and Japan Electronic Industry Development Association (JEIDA), has become popular. The market for personal computers having an operating system (OS) having a control function of the PC cards is expanding rapidly. The PC card control software, pursuant to the standard design statements of PCMCIA/JEIDA, executes the following processing operations (i) to (iv) for resource control: (i) the operation of advising a device driver of the effect that a PC card has been introduced into a PC card slot; (ii) the operation of reading out the attribute information of the card on request from a configuration software of a device driver; (iii) the operation of allocating the level of interrupt, area of I/O space and memory space of a personal computer required for operations; with the operation of allocation being executed dynamically responsive to the state of utilization of the system resource of the PC card or other peripheral equipments; and (iv) writing a value specified by the software for configuration in a register in a PC card or a PC card controller LSI. With the conventional data backup device, since the device is bulky and consumes a significant amount of the electric power, it has been impossible to maintain the portability when the device is connected to a lap-top personal computer or a portable information communication equipment. On the other hand, it is required of a user to provide for separate software instalment when a tape backup device is connected to a personal computer. Electronics World plus Wireless World 99 (1993) January no. 1682 pp 51-52 describes an audio recording format for use on a 2.5mm width tape. The present invention provides a recording and/or reproducing system comprising: recording and/or reproducing means (122) for recording and/or reproducing digital data or digital signals on or from a loaded tape-shaped recording medium; and interfacing means (121) having a first input/output means for exchanging data and/or signals with an external information apparatus and a second input/output means exchanging data and/or signals with said recording and/or reproducing means, said interfacing means converting data and/or signals supplied from said recording and/or reproducing means through said second input/output means and routing the converted data and/or signals through said first input/output means to the external information apparatus, said recording and/or reproducing means also converting data and or signals supplied from said external information apparatus through said first input/output means and routing the converted data and/or signals through said second input/output means to the recording and/or reproducing means; characterised by: a casing having a flat-plate-shaped section at one end and a housing section for housing said recording and/or reproducing means, said flat-plate-shaped section being for insertion into a PC card slot of the external information apparatus and having a connecting portion for connection to the external information apparatus. With the recording and/or reproducing system of the present invention, data can be recorded on or reproduced from the recording medium through an interfacing unit for an external information equipment, such as a computer. Thus the recording and/or reproducing system may be employed for enabling reliable data backup for the external information equipment even if the data is of a large volume. The present invention will be further described below with reference to exemplary embodiments and the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a perspective view showing the state in which a host system and a data backup system in the data backup system in an embodiment of the present invention are separated from each other. Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing the state in which a data backup system is loaded on a host system in the data backup system in the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 3 is a plan view showing a data backup system. Fig. 4 is a side view showing the data backup system. Fig. 5 is a perspective view showing the data backup system. Fig. 6 is a block diagram showing essential portions of an electrical configuration of the data backup system. Fig. 7 is a block diagram showing essential portions of an electrical configuration of the host system. Fig. 8 is a plan view showing a modified embodiment of the data backup system. Fig. 9 is a plan view showing another modified embodiment of the data backup system. Fig. 10 is a plan view showing a further modified embodiment of the data backup system. Fig. 11 is a perspective view showing the data backup device shown in Fig. 10. Next a data backup device and a data backup system according to the present invention will be explained in detail. The data backup system according to the embodiment is made up of a host system 110 and a data backup device 120, as shown in Fig. 1. The host system 110 may be a portable information communication equipment or a lap-top type personal computer equipped with an operating system (OS) having a PC card control function by the PC card control software conforming to PCMCIA/JEIDA standard design statements. There is provided a PC card slot 111 for insertion of a PC card. The host system 110 includes a main body 110a and a cover 110c rotatably mounted with respect to the main body 110a. The main body 110a is rectangular shaped and has on its one surface a plurality of actuating keys 110b while having on its lateral surface the above-mentioned PC card slot 111. A display 110d composed of e.g., liquid crystal display elements, is provided in an inner surface of the cover 110c, that is on the surface thereof facing the actuating keys 110b in the closed state of the actuating keys 110b. The host system is loaded in position by introducing the data backup device 120 into the PC card slot 111, as shown in Fig. 2. The data backup device 120 includes a PC card unit 121 of the PC card size conforming to the PCMCIA standard design statements and a cassette deck unit 122 unified with the PC card unit 121, as shown in Figs. 3 to 5. The data backup device 120 has its cassette deck unit 122 protruded from the main body of the host system 110 when the PC card unit 121 is inserted in position into the PC card slot 111 of the host system 110, as shown in Fig. 2 . A cassette lid 123 is pivotally mounted at an upper wall section of the cassette deck unit 122 of the data backup device 120. On the front wall section of the data backup device 120 are mounted a light-emitting section 124 for displaying the operating state by its lighted state, and an ejection button 125. On actuation of the ejection button 125, the cassette lid 123 is rotated in a direction of being opened from the device 120 for enabling exchange of tape cassettes. The data backup device 120 is configured to effect non-tracking recording/reproduction of digital data on or from a magnetic tape of 2.5 mm in tape width accommodated in the tape cassette 1 by a rotary head 14.8 mm in diameter provided in a rotary drum 126. The data backup device 120 has in its PC card unit 121 a digital signal processing circuit (DSP) 127, as a main electric circuit of the recording and reproducing system for non-tracking data processing of digital data, a DRAM 128, a DEC/ENC circuit 129, a recording/reproducing amplifier 130, a motor driving circuit 131 and a control computer 132, as shown in Fig. 19. The PC card unit 121 has a memory 133, such as a flash memory of a non-volatile RAM, an interface for a PC card, constituted by a gate array, an error processing unit (ECC) 135 and a bus handler 136 for the DSP 127. The PC card interface 134 is electrically connected to the host system 110 through a 168-pin connector 137 provided on a short side of the device 120. The driving voltages V CC , V PP1 and V PP2 are supplied to the data backup device 120 through the pin connector 137. A device driver for the data backup device 120 is pre-loaded on the memory 133 of the PC card unit 121. The device driver may be re-written depending on the sorts of the host system 110. The PCMCIA/JEIDA provides, as physical design statements, the card size, connector size, environmental conditions for the card or the connector, while providing, as card attribute information design statements, the memory device information, version information, format information or the configuration information. The PCMCIA/JEIDA also provides, as physical design statements, the pin array, electrical interfacing, memory read/write operation, I/O function or signal timing. The data backup device 120 functions as a device conforming to these PCMCIA/JEIDA standard design statements. The host system 110 has a PC card controller 112, a computer 113, an operating system (OS) for card/socket service or configuration software, and a hard disk drive (HDD) 115, as shown in Fig. 7 . If, with the PC card unit 121 inserted into the PC card slot 111 and with the data backup device 120 loaded in position, the power is turned on, the PC card controller 112 of the host system 110 advises the OS 114 of the effect that the PC card has been inserted into the PC card slot 111. The OS 114 is instructed by the PC card controller 112 to search for the card attribute information and the downloading of the device driver. The PC card controller 112 downloads the device driver from the memory 133 of the PC card controller 112 to the OS 114. Based upon the schedule management present in the downloaded device driver, the OS 114 causes data of the HDD 115 to be periodically transferred to the data backup device 120. The data backup device 120 causes data periodically transferred from the HDD 115 to be recorded on the magnetic tape. This enables periodic backup of the data from the HDD 115 by the data backup device 120. By providing protrusions 138 on the sidewall sections of the cassette deck unit 122 operating as finger support as shown in Fig. 8 , the data backup device 120 can be easily mounted on and dismounted from the host system 110. The data backup device 120 may also be configured to be dismounted from the host system 110 by a link mechanism, as shown in Fig. 9 . That is, actuating arms 149 are provided which may be rotated about pivot 143 as the center of rotation by thrusting the protrusions 141 on the sidewall sections of the cassette deck unit 122 against the force of torsion coil springs 142. By rotational actuation of the actuating arms 144, the casing of the host system 110 is thrust by the foremost parts of the actuating arms 144 for dismounting the data backup device 120 from the host system 110. With the present second embodiment of the data backup device 120, the cassette lid 123 is pivotally mounted on the upper wall section of the cassette deck unit 122, In addition, the light emitting section 124 indicating the actuated state by light and the ejection button 125 are arranged on the front wall section so that the tape cassette 40 will be mounted horizontally on the cassette deck unit 122. In addition to such construction, the cassette lid 123 may be pivotally mounted on the front wall section of the cassette deck unit 122 and the light-emitting section 124 indicating the actuated state by light and the ejection button 125 may be provided on the upper wall section so that the tape cassette 1 will be vertically loaded on the cassette deck unit 122, as shown in Figs. 10 and 11.

Claims: A recording and/or reproducing system comprising: recording and/or reproducing means (122) for recording and/or reproducing digital data or digital signals on or from a loaded tape-shaped recording medium; and interfacing means (121) having a first input/output means for exchanging data and/or signals with an external information apparatus and a second input/output means exchanging data and/or signals with said recording and/or reproducing means, said interfacing means converting data and/or signals supplied from said recording and/or reproducing means through said second input/output means and routing the converted data and/or signals through said first input/output means to the external information apparatus, said recording and/or reproducing means also converting data and/or signals supplied from said external information apparatus through said first input/output means and routing the converted data and/or signals through said second input/output means to the recording and/or reproducing means; characterised by: a casing having a flat-plate-shaped section at one end and a housing section for housing said recording and/or reproducing means, said flat-plate-shaped section being for insertion into a PC card slot of the external information apparatus and having a connecting portion (137) for connection to the external information apparatus (110). A recording and/or reproducing system according to claim 1, wherein said interfacing means (121) is housed in said flat-plate-shaped section of said casing. A recording and/or reproducing system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a driving power source voltage is supplied to said system through said connecting portion (137) when said system is connected to an external information apparatus (110). A recording and/or reproducing system according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said interfacing means (121) further comprises a memory having stored therein software for the the external information apparatus. A recording and/or reproducing system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said recording and/or reproducing means (122) records data specifying the sorts of recorded data along with data converted by said interfacing means when said recorded data is recorded on the tape-shaped recording medium, said recorded data being data supplied through said second input/output means from the external information apparatus and converted by said interfacing means. A recording and/or reproducing system according to claim 5, wherein said interfacing means (121) comprises encoding/decoding means for encoding video information and decoding data supplied through said second input/output means from said recording and/or reproducing means. A recording and/or reproducing system according to claim 5 or 6, wherein said interfacing means comprises encoding/decoding means for encoding audio information and decoding data supplied through said second input/output means from saiod recording and/or reproducing means. A data backup system comprising: a host system (110) having a slot (111) and having loaded thereon an operating system having a control function for controlling a personal coputer card inserted into said slot; and a recording and/or reproducing system (120) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said host system (110) is said external information apparatus and data backup of said host system (110) is performed by said recording and/or reproducing system (120) when inserted in position in said slot in said host system. A data backup system according to claim 8, when dependent on claim 4, wherein said host system (110), in use, downloads the stored software from said memory of said recording and/or reproducing system loaded in said slot to an operation system for effecting periodic control operations for data backup in accordance with the stored software.

Inventors: KONDO TSUYOSHI, KONDO, TSUYOSHI, KONDO, TSUYOSHI, C/O SONY CORPORATION
Applicants: SONY CORP, SONY CORPORATION
Application year: 1995
Main classification: G06F3
IPC codes: G06F3, G11B27, G11B20, G11B31, G06F11