Price display setting arrangements
First Claim
1. A price setting arrangement for remotely controlled dispensing apparatus from which any one of a number of products may be selected, comprising a transmitting unit located separately from the remotely controlled apparatus and operable to transmit repetitively to the apparatus a signal which includes the unit prices of all the products, and a receiving unit carried by the remotely controlled apparatus and including recognition means responsive to the selection of a particular product to recognise the unit price signal transmitted in respect to that product, comparison means operable to compare the recognised received price signal in each transmission with a signal stored from a previous transmission, and means responsive to a predetermined successive number of comparisons made without identity between the received price signal and the stored signal to replace the stored signal by the received price signal.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A unit price setting arrangement for differently priced products available from a remotely located dispenser for example, grades of fuel, from a pump, consists of a central transmitter and a receiver in each dispenser. The transmitter forms a series of fixed length binary words, one for each product, and transmits them in sequence repetitively. Each receiver counts words of the sequence received and compares them with the position of a selected product in the sequence to determine which word relates to the product of interest. That word only is used and is applied to a comparator with a corresponding word stored from a previous transmission to detect a change in the word. A shift register having a stored bit responds to an unsuccessful comparison to shift the bit through one location and a shift through a predetermined number of locations by successive unsuccessful comparisons, if the change is permanent, causes a controller to replace the stored value with the newly received one. The shift register is reset by a correct comparison if the change indicated by the comparison is not sustained and the stored value is unaltered. Thus any disturbance giving rise to a wrong binary word is ineffective but a deliberate change repeated over several transmissions is effective.
77 Citations
14 Claims
- 1. A price setting arrangement for remotely controlled dispensing apparatus from which any one of a number of products may be selected, comprising a transmitting unit located separately from the remotely controlled apparatus and operable to transmit repetitively to the apparatus a signal which includes the unit prices of all the products, and a receiving unit carried by the remotely controlled apparatus and including recognition means responsive to the selection of a particular product to recognise the unit price signal transmitted in respect to that product, comparison means operable to compare the recognised received price signal in each transmission with a signal stored from a previous transmission, and means responsive to a predetermined successive number of comparisons made without identity between the received price signal and the stored signal to replace the stored signal by the received price signal.
- 2. A price setting arrangement for remotely controlled dispensing apparatus from which any one of a number of products may be selected, comprising a transmitting unit located separately from the remotely controlled apparatus including manually settable switching means operable to produce for each unit price a unique binary word of fixed length, and scanning means operable to address the switching means and to select each binary word in turn and to transmit the binary words in a sequence which includes all of the unit prices, and a receiving unit carried by the remotely controlled apparatus including recognition means responsive to the selection of a particular product to recognise the unit price signal transmitted in respect of that product, comparison means operable to compare the recognised received price signal in each transmission with a signal stored from a previous transmission, and means responsive to a predetermined successive number of comparisons made without identity between the received price signal and the stored signal to replace the stored signal by the received price signal.
Specification