Hand-held portable WWW access terminal with visual display panel and GUI-based WWW browser program integrated with bar code symbol reader in a hand-supportable housing

摘要

A portable hand-held WWW access terminal for accessing HTML-encoded documents located on the WWW. The terminal includes a bar code symbol reader in a hand-supportable housing for reading URL-encoded symbols specifying the location of HTML-encoded documents stored in information servers connected to the Internet and supporting the TCP/IP standard. A computing platform is provided for supporting a GUI-based WWW browser program integrated with the bar code symbol reader in the hand-supportable housing. A telecommunication modem is operably connected to the computing platform in order to establish a two-way telecommunication link between the GUI-based WWW browser and an Internet service provider (ISP) connected to the Internet. In response to reading a URL-encoded bar code symbol, the WWW browser program automatically accesses a corresponding HTML-encoded document on the Internet, for display on a visual display panel integrated with hand-supportable housing. A keypad is also integrated with the hand-supportable housing for manually providing information to the WWW browser program.