POS terminal device

• US 4,859,838 A
• Filed: 11/16/1987
• Issued: 08/22/1989
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/1986
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. (Omron Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Omron Tateisi Electronics Co. (Omron Corporation)
• Inventors: Okiharu, Ryoichi
• Primary Examiner(s): TRAFTON, DAVID
• Application Number:
  US07/120,937
• Time in Patent Office: 645 Days
• Field of Search: 235/383, 235/438, 235/462, 364/404
• US Class Current: 705/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 17/00 Methods or arrangements for effecting co-operative working between equipments covered by two or more of main groups G06K1/00 - G06K15/00, e.g. automatic card files incorporating conveying and reading operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/201 Price look-up processing, e.g. updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/202 Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/203 Inventory monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/145 PLU-management

Abstract

To improve reliability of a POS (point of sales) terminal device, an internal memory umit is further provided in addition to two external memory units having PLU (price look-up) files. Therefore, even if two external memory units develop trouble simultaneously, data (price, name, linked commodity section data and so on) related to a sold commodity are all read from the internal memory unit, whenever a bar code of the commodity is read through a scanner, before implementing registration processing. The data related to the commodities in the internal memory unit are updated whenever registration processing is implemented in dependence upon the normal external memory unit.

Claims

1. A point of sales terminal device comprising:

(a) a file for sorting commodity identification data and data related to commodities corresponding to the commodity identification data for each commodity;

(b) reading means for reading commodity identification data attached to commodities;

(c) registration processing means for registration processing sold commodities on the basis of data related to the commodities read from said file, whenever commodity identification data are read through said reading means;

(d) storing means for storing commodity identification data and data related to commodities corresponding to the commodity identification data;

(e) discriminating means for discriminating whether said file is abnormal or not whenever said reading means reads commodity identification data; and

(f) control means for allowing said storing means to store data related to read commodities and said registration processing means to implement registration processing, whenever said discriminating means discriminates that said file is normal; and

for retrieving data related to the read commodities in said storing means on the basis of commodity identification data read by said reading means and allowing said registration processing means to implement registration processing on the basis of the data related to commodities and read from said storing means, when said discriminating means discriminates that said file is abnormal.

2. The point of sales terminal device as set forth in claim 1, wherein capacity of said storing means is smaller than that of said file;

and when areas in said storing means are filled with data, areas in said storing means are rewritten by new data beginning from a first area in sequence.

3. The point of sales terminal device as set forth in claim 1, which further comprises a keyboard for entering commodity codes and commodity price, and linked commodity section code when no commodity identification data are attached to commodities to be registered.

4. The point of sales terminal device as set forth in claim 1, wherein data related to commodity are price, name and linked section data.

5. The point of sales terminal device as set forth in claim 1, wherein sum totals of money and sum totals of number of sold commodities classified according to commodity sections are renewed in the registration processing.

6. A method of registration processing for sold commodities, which comprises the following steps of:

(a) scanning a bar code attached on a commodity;

(b) checking whether a first memory unit is normal;

(c) if normal, reading a price and name on the basis of the scanned bar code from the first memory unit;

(d) storing data related to the scanned commodity in a second memory unit;

(e) if abnormal in step (c) above, checking whether the second memory unit is normal;

(f) if normal, checking whether data related to the scanned commodity are stored in the second memory unit;

(g) if stored, reading a price and name from the second memory unit.

7. The method of claim 6, which further comprises the following steps of:

(a) if abnormal in step (c), checking whether another first memory unit is normal;

(b) if the another first memory unit is normal, reading a price, name from the another first memory unit.