JPS6141417B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a display terminal device with a barcode reader that reduces the load on a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU).

In large stores, hospitals, etc., computers are used for sales, accounting, and inventory management of various products, as well as for managing various pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and medical records, and necessary information can be quickly input and output from multiple terminals. I'm starting to be able to do that. A keyboard is a typical input means in a terminal, but inputting using a keyboard requires an operator to recognize the input content once and for all, which may not necessarily be efficient. On the other hand, when inputting data using a barcode reader, the operator only has to perform the mechanical operation of scanning the barcode section with the detection section of the reader, and there is no need to read the meaning of the barcode, so large amounts of data can be input. It is very convenient. Furthermore, as an output means, it is often necessary to output a soft copy using a display device.

Usually, the display, keyboard,
A single CPU will manage and control multiple terminals equipped with barcode readers and the like. Figure 1 is a block diagram showing such a general system configuration, where the CPU is the central processing unit, the MS is the main memory,
MT is an external storage device such as magnetic tape, PR is a printer, DPY is a display, KB is a keyboard,
BCR is a barcode reader.

By the way, in conventional terminal devices, the signal from the barcode reader is not directly displayed on the display, but is first notified to the CPU by an interrupt.
It is decoded by a program in the CPU, converted into character codes, and sent again to the display terminal for display. Therefore, the load on the CPU increases and the capacity for other processing is limited. In the example above, in stores and hospitals, it is desirable to process as efficiently as possible using a CPU as small as a minicomputer. The rate of disability is extremely high.

The present invention aims to solve such conventional problems and provide a more efficient barcode reader system. Therefore, the signal from the barcode reader is first displayed on the display on the terminal side, and then the operator can input it on the keyboard. The data is sent to the CPU side only when the send key is pressed.

Figure 2 is a block diagram of a conventional display terminal device, in which 1 is an interface section with the CPU;
2 is character code buffer, 3 is character generator, 4
is a display means such as a CRT, 5 is a keyboard, and 6 is a signal from the keyboard. In the case of a normal character key, the corresponding character code a is transmitted, and in the case of a function key, the command code b indicating the function is transmitted. A keyboard control unit for output; 7 a control unit for reading/writing to the character code buffer 2; 8 a detection unit for a barcode reader;
9 is a demodulating section of the barcode reader.

As shown in the figure, the display data on the display 4 is transferred to the character code buffer 2 in character code form.
It can be given from the CPU or from the keyboard 5. In synchronization with the screen scanning of the display 4, character codes are sequentially read out from the character code buffer 2, converted into character patterns by the character generator 3, and displayed. Characters input from the keyboard 5 are also controlled by the control unit 6.
is held in the character code buffer 2 and displayed. To send characters input from the keyboard 5 and displayed to the CPU, press the Send key, which is one of the function keys.
Sends all the contents of the character code buffer to the CPU side.

However, when a signal from the barcode reader 8 is generated, it is immediately transmitted through the interface section 1.
Generates an interrupt to the CPU without being displayed
The read data is sent to the CPU side, and it is
It started to be displayed only after it was sent back as a character code that should be displayed.

FIG. 3 shows one embodiment of the present invention, and the same numbers as in FIG. 2 indicate the same circuits. Third
In the figure, a read signal from a barcode reader 8 is demodulated into a digital signal via a demodulator 9, and further converted into a character code a' by an encoder 10, and a character code a' from a keyboard 5 is output.
Similarly, the character code buffer 2 is sent via the control unit 7.
written to. Therefore, its contents are displayed immediately along with other characters, but are not transferred to the CPU.
Transfer to the CPU is performed for the first time by pressing the send key on the keyboard. Therefore, after reading several barcodes, the CPU
This makes it possible to significantly reduce the load associated with interrupt processing on the CPU.

In the present invention, data cannot be transferred to the CPU unless the send key is pressed, but this does not make the operability worse than before. This is because, even in the conventional example, it was necessary to press the send key in order to recognize the content displayed by the CPU as correct input data. That is, in the conventional example, the data sent from the barcode reader to the CPU is simply converted into a character code and sent back, and that alone is not recognized as input data to the CPU.

As described above, according to the present invention, the data read by the barcode reader is displayed only on the display terminal side, some data is read and confirmed on the display screen, and if the wrong data is read, By deleting it, etc., and then pressing the send key, the number of interrupts to the CPU can be reduced to a fraction to a few tenths, and a small CPU can handle a large number of interrupts. terminals can be controlled.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a general system configuration block diagram, Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional example of a display terminal,
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is an interface section, 2 is a character code buffer, 3 is a character generator, 4 is a display, 5 is a keyboard, 8 is a bar code reader, and 10 is an encoder.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An interface unit with the central processing unit, a keyboard, a character code buffer that holds character codes from the central processing unit or the keyboard, and a character generator that converts the character codes from the character code buffer into character patterns. and a display means for displaying a character pattern from a character generator, in addition to a barcode reader connected to the display terminal, an encoder for converting the output from the barcode reader into a character code; A means of writing the encoder output to the above character buffer and a send/write method on the above keyboard.
A display terminal device equipped with a barcode reader, characterized in that the display terminal device is provided with means for sending a character code in the character buffer to the central processing unit in response to a key.