Processing means and terminal incorporating same, particularly for point of sale systems
First Claim
1. In a point of sale system,a point of sale terminal having input/output means comprised of the following:
- data input means accommodating input of data by an operator concerning point of sale transactions,coded data input means accommodating input of machine readable data concerning point of sale transactions,on-line display means for displaying point of sale transaction information, andhard copy output means for outputting data in human readable form concerning point of sale transactions,said point of sale terminal further comprising;
primary processing module means operable for interacting wit the aforesaid input/output means in the processing of point of sale transactions,said primary processing module means having a series of expansion connector means each having data bus, address bus, and control bus connection means coupled with said primary processing module means and providing for the coupling of data, address and control signals with peripheral devices, andperipheral expansion module means detachably engaged with said expansion connector means for data processing interaction with said primary processing module means in connection with point of sale transactions.
7 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A point of sale system as illustrated comprised of a terminal with input or output devices including a manual data input, a coded data input (e.g., bar code scanner and/or smart card reader), an on-line display, and a hard copy output. A primary processing module has ten expansion connectors such that the primary module can become any level of processor from powerful peripheral controller to a master processor with a large non-volatile database, such flexibility giving a point of sale terminal configuration advantages such as the following: (1) reduced cost in volume production because one common computing core is used to control different functions; (2) improved system redundancy since the primary processor unit can control localized peripherals at the bus level independently of a point of sale system network; and (3) improved system performance by (a) reducing the amount of peripheral network communication traffic, and (b) direct access to database information in small to medium size point of sale systems.
15 Citations
5 Claims
-
1. In a point of sale system,
a point of sale terminal having input/output means comprised of the following: -
data input means accommodating input of data by an operator concerning point of sale transactions, coded data input means accommodating input of machine readable data concerning point of sale transactions, on-line display means for displaying point of sale transaction information, and hard copy output means for outputting data in human readable form concerning point of sale transactions, said point of sale terminal further comprising; primary processing module means operable for interacting wit the aforesaid input/output means in the processing of point of sale transactions, said primary processing module means having a series of expansion connector means each having data bus, address bus, and control bus connection means coupled with said primary processing module means and providing for the coupling of data, address and control signals with peripheral devices, and peripheral expansion module means detachably engaged with said expansion connector means for data processing interaction with said primary processing module means in connection with point of sale transactions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
-
Specification