...that the Slinky toy was the result of a failed attempt by engineer Richard James to produce an antivibration device for ship instruments? His goal was to develop a spring that would instantaneously counterbalance the wave motion that rocks a ship at sea. Instead, he developed the Slinky.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8156513 | Motor and storage disk drive apparatus A motor includes a bearing mechanism, a stationary unit including a stator arranged radially outwards of the bearing mechanism, and a rotary unit supported by the bearing mechanism at the upper side of the stationary unit for rotation about a center axis with respec... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8136132 | Optical disk drive with rotary load/eject mechanism and related computer device An optical disk drive includes a bracket, and a mecha module installed on the bracket. The mecha module includes a mounting plate fixed on the bracket, an optical pick-up head installed on the mounting plate in a slidable manner for reading or writing data in an opt... | 03/13/2012 |
| 7962927 | Optical disk The present invention relates to an optical disc for use as a recording medium in an optical disc drive, which has a transparent protection film (120) formed on a recording layer on one plane of the disc substrate (110) and a printing label film 130... | 06/14/2011 |
| 7913268 | Motor and manufacturing method of the same A motor is provided with a chucking device enabling attachment and detachment of a disk-shaped storage medium. In the motor, a turntable forming a portion of the chucking device is disposed axially above a rotor holder. The turntable has a placement portion on which... | 03/22/2011 |
| 7739704 | Disk apparatus having traverse and spindle cam members and method of operating same A slot-in type disk apparatus includes: (1) a base body, (2) a traverse base provided on the base body, (3) a spindle motor held by the traverse base and rotating a disk, (4) a loading motor provided on the base body, (5) a traverse cam member for displacing a locat... | 06/15/2010 |
| 7581234 | Turntable assembly for spindle motor and having a back yoke Provided is turntable assembly of a spindle motor. The turntable assembly includes a turntable and a back yoke. The back yoke is installed on the turntable. The turntable includes at least one of a turntable coupling protrusion and a protrusion coupler formed thereo... | 08/25/2009 |
| 7565669 | Optical disc drive with optical disk heating member An optical disc drive include a turntable for mounting an optical disc, a driving unit rotating the turntable, and an optical disc heating member for heating a center portion of the optical disc. In the optical disc drive, an inner circumference temperature of the o... | 07/21/2009 |
| 7546614 | Recording/reproducing apparatus and disk cartridge A disk surface of an optical disk is divided into two regions by a straight line being close to a movement line for an optical pickup to scan and passing in the vicinity of a center of the optical disk. An auxiliary stabilizing member is arranged separately from a m... | 06/09/2009 |
| 7436380 | Electronic Apparatus with level detecting function An electronic apparatus with level detecting capability has an electronic component, a light-sensing device for sensing light, a light source for emitting light onto the light-sensing device, a light blocker for blocking light emitted by the light source from projec... | 10/14/2008 |
| 7421722 | Optical disc apparatus An optical disc apparatus includes position restricting component for restricting the position of a unit mechanism portion in a disc plane direction when the unit mechanism portion is in a raised state. The position restricting component includes a first portion tha... | 09/02/2008 |
| 7401345 | Digital audio signal player An audio signal player includes a turntable unit, a conductive touch-control plate on top of the turntable unit, a round disk, a round disk central shaft made of electricity-conductive materials and joined to the touch-control plate, a reflective-type photoelectric ... | 07/15/2008 |
| 7398539 | Height-variable type turntable assembly and optical disk device including the same The present invention relates generally to a turntable assembly for optical disks and, more particularly, to a height-variable type turntable assembly, which can adjust the height of a turntable to adjust the working distance between an object lens and an optical di... | 07/08/2008 |
| 7367036 | Recording/reproduction apparatus, driving method therefor and disk cartridge A stabilizing part applying aerodynamic force to the recording medium so as to control disk axial runout of the recording disk and stabilize it; the stabilizing part includes a main stabilizing member for a recording/reproduction position with the recording/reproduc... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7308694 | High-precision positioning apparatus A high-precision positioning apparatus includes a fine driving unit for producing horizontal and small movements of a flat recording medium relative to an optical system, the medium being used for optically recording and reproducing information. The fine driving uni... | 12/11/2007 |
| 7299482 | High precision positioning apparatus There is disclosed a high precision positioning apparatus capable of realizing accurate positioning of a recording medium with respect to an optical system by minute movement at a relatively low cost. The high precision positioning apparatus comprises a driving unit... | 11/20/2007 |
| 7221985 | On-screen calibration system and operating method thereof An on-screen calibration system for disc drives and the operating method thereof. The calibration system includes an autocollimator detecting the inclined angle of the stage of a disc drive. A control module is connected to the on-screen display module and a bar cod... | 05/22/2007 |
| 7200850 | Spindle motor having aligning mechanism and information recording/reproducing apparatus mounted with such spindle motor An easy-to-manufacture spindle motor has an aligning mechanism whose precision is equal to that of cutting of metallic materials without entailing an extra cost. The aligning mechanism is in contact with the center hole of a disk-shaped recording medium and comprise... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7194750 | Recording/reproducing apparatus and disk cartridge A disk surface of an optical disk is divided into two regions by a straight line being close to a movement line for an optical pickup to scan and passing in the vicinity of a center of the optical disk. An auxiliary stabilizing member is arranged separately from a m... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7174559 | Disk drive with optical pickup guiding and disk table restricting element Disclosed herein is a disk drive including a base, a spindle motor mounted on the base, a disk table fixed to a motor shaft of the spindle motor and adapted to be rotated about the axis of the motor shaft by the spindle motor, an optical pickup supported movably in ... | 02/06/2007 |
| 7133250 | Inboard thrust surface fluid recirculation pump An inboard thrust surface is provided for a spindle motor that maintains fluid flow through a journal bearing and generates an added offset pressure to avoid any subambient pressure within a journal. In an aspect, journal bearing asymmetry is minimized or eliminated... | 11/07/2006 |
| 7028319 | Transverse-adjustment device for a spindle motor The transverse-adjustment device for a spindle motor is used to adjust and correct the transverse position of the spindle motor to be aligned at an identical axis with the optical pick-up, and comprises: a first displacement-adjusting member and a second displacemen... | 04/11/2006 |
| 7006418 | Optical disk device that monitors chip temperature of a drive and controls its operation based on the chip temperature Monitor circuits monitor junction temperatures of chips of driver ICs which drive a driving part of a recording/reproduction system. Comparison circuits compare the junction temperatures with respective arbitrarily set temperatures to output temperature flags as com... | 02/28/2006 |
| 6993779 | Positioning structure of a clamping device of a disc carrier assembly A disc carrier assembly for an optical disc drive includes a disc carrier having an axial tube, a clamping device, and a positioning sleeve. The clamping device includes a central hole and plural clamping members for clamping an optical disc. The axial tube of the d... | 01/31/2006 |
| 6970411 | Apparatus for recording and/or reproducing information and/or from optical information record disk An apparatus for recording and/or reproducing information on and/or from a magneto-optical disk including an optical head for projecting a laser beam onto a magneto-optical disk and receiving the laser beam reflected by the disk, an up-down block arranged movably be... | 11/29/2005 |
| 6961949 | Disc carrier having a clamping device for use in an optical disc drive A disc carrier for an optical disc drive includes a recession integrally formed thereon and an axial tube projecting from a central portion of a bottom wall of the recession. A shaft extends through the axial tube. An engaging length between the axial tube and the s... | 11/01/2005 |
| 6957441 | Optical disc carrier assembly including a disc carrier integrally formed with a rotor of the spindle motor A disc carrier assembly for a spindle motor for an optical disc drive includes a rotor and a disc carrier. The rotor includes an end wall and a peripheral wall. The end wall has a central hole. The disc carrier includes a main plate having an inner side and an outer... | 10/18/2005 |
| 6951025 | Gas dynamic pressure bearing, spindle motor comprising a gas dynamic pressure bearing, and recording disk drive device and polygon scanner comprising a spindle motor A gas dynamic pressure bearing is disclosed in which dynamic pressure generating grooves in a radial bearing pump out gas toward a thrust bearing, and dynamic pressure generating grooves in the thrust bearing pump in gas toward the radial bearings. This structure ge... | 09/27/2005 |
| 6904608 | Spring for motors and optical disk driver with such spring A spring for motors and an optical disk drive having a motor with such a spring are disclosed. The spring consists of a shaft-hooking part (102) held by the rotating shaft of a motor (M), a rear hooking part (104) held at the rear end surface of the mo... | 06/07/2005 |
| 6901650 | Adjusting method for an optical disc apparatus A relative adjustment between an optical disc rotating mechanism and an optical pickup is adjusted by rotating a rotary member against a biasing force of an engaging projection. As the rotary member is rotated, the projection is slid for movement on an inclined surf... | 06/07/2005 |
| 6877164 | Turntable apparatus for disk drive A turntable apparatus for a disk drive comprises: a rotational shaft of a driving source; a turntable inserted into the rotational shaft so as to be trembled a certain degree toward front and rear, right and left directions; a pivot joint fixed on the rotational sha... | 04/05/2005 |
| 6795970 | Disk loading apparatus with floatable clamp means In a disk loading apparatus according to the present invention, a clamp section is configured so as to be floatable in a direction perpendicular to the direction of disk insertion and so as to be lifted up and thereby go outside the path of disk insertion when being... | 09/21/2004 |
| 6680896 | Medium attaching device and disk drive apparatus A medium attaching device for attaching and holding a disk to and releasing the disk from a turntable of a disk device. A plurality of holding/releasing devices are arranged radially around a center hub of the turntable. Each holding/releasing device incl... | 01/20/2004 |
| 6021885 | Rotary drive device with axially movable receptacle A rotary drive device for a flat object which is transported by a conveyance means to a processing station. At the processing station the object is rotated about an axis orthogonal to its surface extension by the rotary drive device. The rotary drive devi... | 02/08/2000 |
| 5459708 | Optical tape focal plane stabilizer A tape stabilizer for stabilizing the focal plane area of an optical tape includes two radius contours adjacent to one another. As an optical tape passes across the stabilizer, an air bearing layer is formed. The air bearing layer suspends the tape above ... | 10/17/1995 |
| 5164927 | Compact record player having downwardly extending notched rib and multiple selection levers A disk record sound reproducing apparatus includes a turntable having a cylindrical rib formed on the lower surface thereof and protruding downwardly therefrom. A plurality of selection levers, equal in number to a number of modulated grooves of a disk re... | 11/17/1992 |
| 5101398 | Device for magnetically guiding movement of a moving body such as an optical head An optical information recording-reproducing apparatus includes an optical head unit, a holding device, a moving device and a guide shaft. The optical head unit effects recording and/or reproduction of information on an optical information recording mediu... | 03/31/1992 |
| 5054015 | Tape recorder with disc player A tape recorder provided with a disc player, wherein a tape cassette accommodating portion is formed within a case, a tape winding reel shaft is provided in a position opposite to a hub on the tape winding side of a compact tape cassette to be engaged wit... | 10/01/1991 |
| 5051975 | Optical recording and/or reproducing apparatus having a temperature adjusting device The present invention relates to an optical recording and/or reproducing apparatus which optically carries out operations of recording and/or reproducing of information on a data carrier, by irradiating a beam from an optical head to the data carrier. In ... | 09/24/1991 |
| 4916687 | Apparatus for mounting and rotating an optical card for recording and/or reproducing information This specification discloses a card-like optical information recording medium comprising a card-like base body, and concentric circular or spiral information tracks provided on the base body and capable of optically recording and/or reproducing informatio... | 04/10/1990 |
| 4825314 | Disc drive A disc drive for a disc including a disc rotating apparatus comprising a rotating shaft for being received within a first aperture of the disc. A spindle is affixed to the shaft. The spindle has a surface disposed in a plane perpendicular to the shaft, fo... | 04/25/1989 |