IE59219B1 - Improvements relating to point of sale microcomputers - Google Patents

Description

(54) Title IMPROVEMENTS RELATING TO POINT OF SALE MICROCOMPUTERS (71) Applicant FELTSCOPE LIMITED, A COMPANY ORGANISED UNDER THE LAWS OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, OF 7 ST. JOHN'S PARK, MONKSTOWN, COUNTY DUBLIN, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

(C) Copyright 1994, Government of Ireland.

V 5921 9 - .2 . The present invention relates to point of sale microcomputers.

The basic requirements of all point of sale microcomputers, irrespective of the retail application are as follows: 1. Data capture and storage 2. Date processing 3. Data retrieval and display as output i. Bull multi-user capability The invention is based on intelligent, fully programmable personal computers configured as point of sale terminals networked to a controller personal computer.

The invention provides a point of sal® microcomputer system comprising at least one terminal connected, via a network to a controller, each terminal running its own application program with a large primary file stored in a local BAM chip, with a shared database being provided in the controller, each terminal having a first display, a keyboard, a microcomputer, a printer and a second display adapted for displaying customer information stored in a memory in the controller. - 2a The network may include a high speed communications board for providing high speed access to data files in the controller, and high speed transmit speeds in both directions between the controller and/or end terminal.

The invention will hereinafter be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings, which illustrate by way of example only, one embodiment according to the invention. In the drawings; Figure 1 is a schematic representation of a total system according to the invention; Figure 2 is a perspective view of a point of sale terminal according to the invention; Figure 3 is an exploded perspective view of the 15 point of sale terminal shown in Figure 2; and - 3 ~ Figure 4 is a schematic representation of the fe layout of the interface cards for use in connecting the microcomputer of the point of sale terminal to the keyboard, customer display,, cash drawer and CMOS RAM microchip.

Referring to the drawings, and initially to Figure 1, the system is based on intelligent terminals 10 running their own applications programs with a large primary item file (main sellers) held in a local RAM microchip and a network connection 30 to a shared database in a controller terminal 50 for file enquiries, record updates, program loading etc.

The RAM configuration of the terminals 10 of between 64.K to 512R is based on holding the item file for over 90% of the terminal throughput. In the majority of applications 90% of all throughput comes from 35% of the items sold. Such a configuration gives a high level of terminal independence and reduces the traffic on the communications line allowing a large number of point of sale terminals in each installation without affecting performance. The effective tuning of the system by the mix of fast local processing, reduced communications line traffic and reduction of controller activity fox servicing requests allows main frame performance using microcomputers.

This system tuning philosophy restricts communications line activity to 1. Enquire for price and description for items not held in the primary buffer 2. Credit card and negative check enquiries 3. Account and second updates 4. Transaction dumping from point of sale terminals to controller terminal . Program loading 6. Broadcast from the controller terminal to the point of sale terminals.

Each point of sales terminal 10 comprises a light emitting diode display 12, a keyboard 14, a microcomputer 16, a screen 18 and a printer 20.

Each Point of Sale (POS) terminal has its own (optional) light emitting diode (LED) display 12 fox the customers benefit. It displays the customer sales information (price of an item, subtotal and change) .

Additional use is made of the LED 12 to display., information - closing early today55 p, - 5 advertising - “special offer on six packs in the off licence®, and seasonal messages - whappy Christmas to all our customers® (or any message that the user wishes to display).

The user first of all enters the message(s) into the controller 50 where they are stored until they are needed. At each POS terminal the user can.... select one ox the messages to he displayed or stop the current message from being displayed.

The main task of the LED 12 is to display sales information and this job will always come first. However, if a predefined period of time has elapsed since the USD 12 was last used (say 2 minutes) the POS unit 10 automatically starts to display the select message on the 20 character LED. The message is scrolled from right to left so that the message can be longer than the 20 characters displayed at any one time. The message is repeated until it has to be used to display more customer sales information or until the user cancels the message.

It is possible to use the POS unit 10 and at the same time have a message scrolling on the LED 12 so long as the current operation doesn’t require the use of the LED.

The keyboard 14 has one hundred and twenty keys 15 which are programmable by the user. The keys 15 are of the long life type and are dust and moisture proof V The microcomputer 16 is based on, an 8088 central processing unit and is the processor that has been used in the majority of IBM {Trade Mark) personal, computers available to date» Alternatively, an 8086 type cenral processing unit could be used» The amount of BAM in both the controller and tills can be configured to match the exact requirements of each site up to 640K, i.e. 16,000 sales items per location.

The display 18 is an 80 column by 25 line, 225mm monochrome screen 19 which allows a user friendly display of data, keyed, running subtotals, full error displays, detailed prompts and display of menu bits included whilst displaying order entry. Also the screen has the facility to underline, reverse highlight and blink the actual display on the screen.

The printer 20 which is an optional feature used in printing customer receipts is an EPSON (Trade Mark) Model 522 standard printer for heavy duty point of sale applications.

Located under point of sale terminal 10 is a cash drawer 35 which is release!by the central processing unit at the termination of a transaction or %?hen specifically released by the user» Included among the interface cards 36 are interface cards for use in connecting the micro- 7 computer to the keyboard, the customer display, cash drawer and CMOS RAM microchip A communications board is provided which gives 5 high speed access to all data files in the controller and which gives access to all data files in the controller and which gives high speed transmit facilities to transmit all sales data to the contoller. Thus only one centred source of pricing files, i.e. only one copy of pricing information need be held at the controller and all terminals can extract relevant information from that single source at any time and at very high speed. Squally, the controller can transmit information to the terminals or an individual terminal IS as required and at high speed. Such an arrangement avoids copying diskettes and the need to maintain different copies of diskettes for different terminals.

The CMOS RAM in each point of sale terminal holds all sales information and other critical control information in the event of power failure and any communications difficulties between the point of sale terminal and the controller, for example, if the controller is inactive or under a very heavy load in a large system. The buffer sizes in CMOS can cater indefinitely for locations with up to 1500 individual sales.

V -8Additional CMOS can be installed up to IS Megabytes to simulate a disk drive to appear exactly as a disk drive to the software, providing extremely high performance and retain data in the event of power loss.

Th® communication system between the point of sale terminals 10 and the controller 50 is based on a KEYSET (Trade Hark) communicating system. Such a system gives high transmission rates with a high throughput low error rate. Each mode is able to communicate with all others. Installation is very easy using four twisted' pair cables. Th® system is very flexible and units can be added or taken out easily.

The controller terminal 50 includes a keyboard 54, a microconputer 5S, a display 58 and a printer SO which is a 30 column printer for reporting progress condensed characters are used for producing detailed reports.

Many tables are included in the system, i.e. system parameters, key parameters, unit parameters, cashier parameters, group parameters, size/measure table, recipe parameters etc. to allow flexibility, however, & considerable program has been written in C language to provide a high performance throughput at the point of sale terminal. The system will process and display from start of order to finish 11 items in 5 seconds without printing a receipt ν' and 6»5 seconds with printing a receipt.

The contents of all files can be optionally encoded which would be of value when transmitting information over the telephone lines or to protect information on site from unauthorised adjustment.

Information from all files can be extracted easily in any language, be pre-processed and transmitted to central control in scrambled form if required. - 9a Figures 5 ~5B., Figures S - SE and Figures 7 - 7Ξ are schematic layouts of a second embodiment of interface cards according to the invention.

Claims (3)

1. A point of sale microcomputer system comprising at least one terminal connected via a network to a controller, each terminal running its own application program with a 5 large primary file stored in a local chip, with a shared database being provided in the controller, each terminal having a first display, a keyboard, a microcomputer, a printer and a second display adapted for displaying customer information stored in a memory in the 10 controller.

2. A point of sale microcomputer system as claimed in Claim 1 in which the network includes a high speed communications board for providing high speed access to data files in the controller, and high speed transmit 15 speeds in both directions between the controller and/or end terminal.

3. A point of sale microcomputer system substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.