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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 5737371 | Realignment of data stream from an optical disk An apparatus and method are provided for detecting and correcting data stream misalignments during read back of data in an optical drive unit. In a dual PLL system, after a data stream is divided into separate positive and negative data streams, correlati... | 04/07/1998 |
| 5646918 | Operating a multi-gripper accessor in an automated storage system In an automated storage and retrieval library system, a library controller is directed to examine a command queue, as well as the state of the grippers and the state of the data drive units. In general, upon completion of the examination, the controller d... | 07/08/1997 |
| 5629813 | Initialization and calibration of magnetic tape having multiple servo areas The present invention provides an apparatus and method for initializing a magnetic tape when it is mounted in a tape drive. In one embodiment, each time a tape is mounted, control parameters pertaining to the servo system are set to predetermined values a... | 05/13/1997 |
| 5623471 | Adaptive backup for storage library In an automated information storage and retrieval library system having a single recording drive, a backup or copying operation is preferably performed in a single-threaded fashion whereas in a library having two or more drives, a multi-threaded approach ... | 04/22/1997 |
| 5623470 | Reallocation of defective recording areas on CD-R or CD-E media Methods for recording information onto CD-Recordable and CD-Erasable optical disks are provided. In a first embodiment, after a session or packet of data is recorded, it is verified to detect unrecoverable errors. If no such errors are present, the sessio... | 04/22/1997 |
| 5612831 | Removeable media drive unit with loader interlock to indicate presence of object An interlock system is provided for removable-media drive unit to prevent the drive loader from attempting to pull in and mount a data cartridge before it is released by a mechanical gripper or human hand. The interlock system includes a light source and ... | 03/18/1997 |
| 5602806 | Magneto-optical recording device capable of reducing thermal interference between recording pits A light intensity, direct overwrite, magneto-optical system generates signals such that, during the formation of a recording mark on an optical disk, a laser is driven a) at a pedestal power level, then b) at a quench power level for a first quench period... | 02/11/1997 |
| 5581073 | Machine and human readable label The present invention provides machine and human readable information for a data cartridge or other item to be stored. In one embodiment, a label, on which human readable information is printed or similarly marked, is applied to cover an indicator area of... | 12/03/1996 |
| 5559982 | Method and apparatus for controlling storage utilization The present invention provides a storage system having a programmable controller which recognizes the amount of storage capacity paid for by a customer, even if more physical capacity is actually installed. When the customer purchases additional capacity,... | 09/24/1996 |
| 5553054 | Coarse position sensor, and method for locating same, in an optical disk drive A coarse position sensor is provided for an optical recording device to generate a substantially linear coarse position signal, indicative of the position of a coarse carriage along the range of its travel, and which also is substantially immune to enviro... | 09/03/1996 |
| 5544304 | Fault tolerant command processing The present invention provides a method and apparatus for reducing the overhead required in conventional fault tolerant processing by redundant processors. Commands are received and queued by both the active and standby units but are processed only by the... | 08/06/1996 |
| 5537578 | Transparent driving partition for processing logical volumes to be recorded onto optical media A system for recording on a rewritable (erasable) optical disk is provided which reduces the data integrity exposure and negative performance impact of separate erase and write passes when writing data to such a disk in a disk drive. In a preferred embodi... | 07/16/1996 |
| 5535188 | Data security protection for information recorded on a rewritable storage medium using a write-once read-many storage medium A data storage system provides the data security afforded by write-once, read-many storage media and the lower cost afforded by rewritable storage media. To effectively write protect data, the system generates a protective code based upon the data to be s... | 07/09/1996 |
| 5526329 | Calibration of readback threshold in an optical storage device to determine a blank sector The present invention provides a method and an apparatus to accurately and consistently distinguish blank sectors from written sectors on optical media despite drive and media variations. A readback envelope threshold is established each time optical medi... | 06/11/1996 |
| 5515355 | Light modulator and optical head adjustment method The present invention sets the position of each apparatus of a detecting system and an emitting system without using a reference disk in assembling an optical head. A light signal similar to reflected light of a reference disk is generated by a light modu... | 05/07/1996 |
| 5504726 | Method and apparatus for calibrating focus and tracking error signals in an optical drive with measuring offsets during track jumps The present invention makes possible the calibration of the tracking error signal and the focus error signal repeatedly when an optical disk drive is in the normal operation mode. Errors (offset and amplitude error) of the focus error signal and the track... | 04/02/1996 |
| 5499233 | Optical disk carrier with write-protect mechanism The present invention provides an optical disk carrier having the same length and width as an ISO standard cartridge but with a reduced thickness and further having the same sensing and handling features as are found on a conventional, full-thickness cart... | 03/12/1996 |
| 5484055 | Machine and human readable label for data cartridge The present invention provides machine and human readable information for a data cartridge or other item to be stored. In one embodiment, a label, on which human readable information is printed or similarly marked, is applied to cover an indicator area of... | 01/16/1996 |
| 5471445 | Apparatus and method for sensing and holding an item An automated storage and retrieval system includes an accessor device to magnetically hold a stored item while the item is transported within the system. To sense the presence of a magnetically attractable label on the item, the device generates a pulsed ... | 11/28/1995 |
| 5459309 | Focus acquiring method and optical disk drive The present invention ensures successful focus acquisition in an optical disk drive independent of a travelling speed of an objective lens at the time when a focus servo circuit loop is closed. The present invention provides sending a signal to a focus ac... | 10/17/1995 |
| 5450385 | Determination of status of storage cells in an automated storage and retrieval system Each storage cell in an automated storage and retrieval system is provided with a mark, such as a bar code label, which is detectable to a vision system when the cell is empty. Further, each item storable in a cell is also provided with a mark, such as a ... | 09/12/1995 |
| 5450384 | Fast formatting of media in an optical library Fast formatting of DASD emulating sectors on optical media is provided to reduce initialization time. Rather than format each track media when a new surface of an optical media is mounted in an optical storage library, a table is created on the media cont... | 09/12/1995 |
| 5448430 | Track following servo demodulation The present invention provides an apparatus and method for precise servo tracking of a multi-track magnetic tape head. The magnetic tape has at least one servo area with at least two servo tracks. Adjoining servo tracks have different servo patterns recor... | 09/05/1995 |
| 5430702 | Calibration of readback threshold in an optical storage device The present invention provides a method and an apparatus to accurately and consistently distinguish blank sectors from written sectors on optical media despite drive and media variations. A readback envelope threshold is established each time optical medi... | 07/04/1995 |
| 5426625 | Masking of tracking error signal abnormalities due to media defects In an optical disk recorder, during the sensing of closely-spaced, position-indicating, machine-sensible indicia, a first peak of a track error signal is detected. In response to the first peak being detected, a half-track counter is decremented from a va... | 06/20/1995 |
| 5426581 | Using a bar code scanner to calibrate positioning of a robotic system A method and system are provided for teaching a robotic accessor the actual location of the center of targets in an automated storage and retrieval system, the actual locations being different from expected or nominal locations due to tolerances in parts ... | 06/20/1995 |
| 5425013 | Relative position sensing calibration for optical storage device A relative position error signal is calibrated in an optical storage device in which a tracking error signal (TES) varies as the light beam shifts its position through the objective lens. The calibration is performed by moving the coarse carriage to a pre... | 06/13/1995 |
| 5418767 | Detection of overusage of spare sectors in an optical disk An apparatus and method are provided for tracking the number of permanent and temporary errors, and spare sectors used as a result of the errors, on a per disk and per drive basis. During read/write operations, a determination is made as to whether the nu... | 05/23/1995 |
| 5412637 | Method for putting an optical head in a stationary state and optical disk drive apparatus The present invention is intended to provide a method for putting an optical head in a stationary state, and an optical disk drive apparatus for doing so without the need of a dedicated sensor for detecting an absolute position of the optical head in the ... | 05/02/1995 |
| 5404504 | Trace tool for serial, optical interface A system is provided for monitoring signals transmitted over one or more optical serial interface channels in an ESCON environment. A formatter card mounts on bus connector in a general purpose tracing tool (GPT) and intercepts optical I/O signals being t... | 04/04/1995 |
| 5402402 | Apparatus for controlling a optical disk drive An optical disk drive apparatus operable under track following mode and seek mode wherein, upon the detection of a track following operation error, a seek operation is initiated for seeking a new target track at a predetermined number of tracks distant fr... | 03/28/1995 |
| 5396476 | Sensing contamination level in an optical storage device The present invention provides an apparatus and method for sensing the contamination level in an optical storage device and for issuing a signal when the contamination exceeds a predetermined value relative to a base value. The tracking error signal gain ... | 03/07/1995 |
| 5388085 | Apparatus and method for accessing sectors of a rotating disk Apparatus and method are provided to increase the capacity of spiral track data storage disks while improving the reliability of access to sectors on the disk by permitting previously unusable sectors immediately following a band boundary to be reliably a... | 02/07/1995 |
| 5384762 | Focusing servo in an optical disk drive An optical disk drive includes a gain control for controlling the gain of a focus servo loop in response to the seek velocity of an optical head. At a low seek velocity, the focus servo gain is reduced to minimize the influence of beam scattering on the g... | 01/24/1995 |
| 5377052 | Actuator assembly for servo-controlled magnetic tape head An actuator assembly is provided for controlling the position of a multi-track, magneto-resistive transducer to index across tracks in a track seek mode and to rapidly adjust the position of the transducer in a servo controlled track following mode. The a... | 12/27/1994 |
| 5357150 | Defect tolerant envelope follower An envelope follower is provided which reduces defect propagation when reading analog information signals from a read head of, for example, an optical drive or a magneto-resistive tape drive. In a preferred embodiment, the envelope follower includes a dif... | 10/18/1994 |
| 5317550 | Apparatus and method for track access A track access apparatus is provided by the present invention in which a reference drive signal 90 proportional to the reference acceleration of a beam spot 22 is generated according to the contents of a track counter 34. A signal 92 indicating the refere... | 05/31/1994 |
| 5315568 | Apparatus and method for accessing sectors of a rotating disk Apparatus and method are provided to increase the capacity of spiral track data storage disks while improving the reliability of access to sectors on the disk. In one embodiment, employed when logical tracks on an optical disk are grouped into concentric ... | 05/24/1994 |
| 5309295 | Method and apparatus for biasing a magneto-resistive head A method and apparatus are provided for biasing a non-center tapped magneto-resistive head at a constant voltage using two separate biasing stages to provide independent control over the voltage at each of the two terminals of the head. A first control de... | 05/03/1994 |
| 5281931 | On-chip self-tuning filter system An on-chip apparatus and method are provided for automatically tuning a continuous time filter in which a single filter selectively filters an information signal or, when tuning is desired, an unfiltered reference signal. During tuning, a controller deter... | 01/25/1994 |
