Abstract

The invention is applicable for use in conjunction with hand-held calculators, preferably of the type having a substantial computing and programming capability. The calculator typically has a housing, an input keyboard on the housing, a computing module in the housing which includes input terminals coupled to the keys of the keyboard, and a display coupled to the output of the computing module. In accordance with the invention, there is provided an interface for entering numeric information from a companion device, such as a graphical digitizer, into the computing module of the hand-held calculator. The interface includes a multipin connector element affixed to the housing of the calculator and a plurality of conductors for coupling the pins of the connector element to the input terminals of the computing module, these conductors being connected in parallel with the inputs from the keyboard. The interface further includes a multipin connector mate element, and a plurality of conductors coupled to the pins of the mate element and adapted for connection to the companion device. The calculator keyboard input to the computing module is typically a one-out-of-N input. The output of a typical graphical digitizer, however, is in binary coded form, with the digits of each binary word running from most-significant to least-significant positions. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, converter means are coupled between the graphical digitizer and the conductor mate element for converting the binary code to one-out-of-N form.