GB2259597A - Bar code reader and till system - Google Patents

Description

BAR CODE READER AND TILL SYSTEM c c r n - 1 1 This invention relates to

barcode readers and specifically to systems incorporating remote hand-held scanners. The invention is particularly concerned with modifications made to existing cash tills.

Bar code readers have become common place in many retail outlets, for example, in supermarkets where produce is labelled with a bar code carrying coded information regarding the price of an article. An infrared bar code reader reads this code, decodes it and displays the encoded price at the cash till.

Bar code readers are commonly hand-held devices or pens which are connected to the register by a coiled cord. Although it is helpful for the user to have a flexible length of cord to enable codes to be read at any point around the till, it has the disadvantage that the operator is tied to the till. It is not possible, for example to read the bar code of an item several metres away from the till.

Other bar code reading systems in use are fixed in position next to a till. Rather than reading the codes with a pen the user passes the encoded item over the reader. The reader emits an audible tone indicating that it has read the item and the price is displayed. A memory within the till stores the price for summation once the codes of all a customer's purchases have been read.

Although this system has the advantage of being quick and easy to operate, the code reader is fixed in position relative to and hard wired to the till. It still suffers from the disadvantage of beina tied to the till.

2 The present invention aims to overcome to the above mentioned disadvantages and accordingly provides a system comprising a cash till having a sensor and a remote hand-held scanner including a display and a transmitter for transmitting sensed price information to the remotely situated cash till.

More specifically, there is provided a cash till system for reading and displaying the prices of items, comprising at least one hand-held scanning device having sensor means arranged to detect external coded information, a microprocessor and memory means arranged to process the output of the sensor means, integral display means providing a display based on the sensed coded information and transmission means for transmitting the information displayed to a remote location; and at least one cash till having a sensor for receiving the information transmitted from a remote location by the hand-held scanning device and a display for displaying the received information.

The invention also provides a conventional electronic cash register having a keyboard with a number of keys, each of which are programmed to send a unique address to a memory means, said memory means storing information regarding goods associated with the keys, for example price, a sensor for sensing data transmitted from a remote hand-held scanner, said data being based upon coded information sensed by the scanner and information contained in a memory means of the scanner, keyboard simulation means for receiving data received by the sensor and simulating the function of keys of the keyboard in accordance with the nature of the data received, and means for addressing the memory means with the output of the keyboard simulation means.

As there is no physical connection between the till and the hand-held sensor the problems of the prior art can be avoided. The user can take the hand-held sensor to the items to be read,

3 - read the codes and observe the prices and totals on an integral display. When this operation is complete the user returns to the till and transmits the stored information to the till, for example by infra-red transmission.

The invention is particularly advantageous for bar and restaurant environments where waiters or barstaff can each be provided with a handheld scanner. Customers can be served and informed of the cost of the meals or drinks without the server having to return to the till. The information stored in the hand set can then be transmitted to the till, opening up the till and storing the information there. This has the advantage that several waiters or barstaff can use the same till without congestion as well as ensuring that customers are charged the correct amount.

Preferably the till is linked to a central computer by a hard wire link. Such a link enables programming of all the tills from a central location and also ensures that information from the tills can be collated. This is particularly useful for stock control and staff Derformance monitoring.

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram of a scanning device for use in a system embodying the invention; Figure 2 is a schematic block diagram of a first embodiment of the invention; Figure 3 is a schematic block diagram of a second embodiment of the invention,; and Figure 4 is a schematic block diagram of a third embodiment of the invention.

The block diagram of Figure 1 is a hand-held scanning device 10 which comprises an integral display and is particularly suited for use by retail personnel. The device comprises an infra-red sensor 12; although any other remote sensor may be used, which is arranged at a convenient point on the scanning device to read information recorded on, eg, a bar code. Typically, the bar code will contain information relating to the PLU of an item dispensed by the operator. The output of the sensor is decoded by a decoder 14 which, although shown separately for ease of understanding, may be a part of a system controller 16, for example a 65C02 8 bit CMOS microprocessor. The processor 16 and decoder 14 examine the received bar code data and decide if it relates to a sale item or a system control command. In the case of a sale, ea. a drink or several drinks to a customer, the decoder outputs an address to look-up table 18. The look-up table has stored the prices of all available items, each one being stored at a unique address. Thus, if address 1010 is placed at the address ports of the memory 18 the price stored at that location will be written at the outputs of the memory. Typically, the memory is a conventional 8k EPROM. Price data is written into a transaction store 20, which may be a conventional 8k static RAM, and from there to a display 24. Conveniently, the display is a liquid crystal display of a sort widely available commercially.

The routine described above is usually repeated a number of times. That is a customer may require a number of drinks, the bar code for each is read in turn and the price and running total displayed.

On each occasion the user reads a transaction bar code a price will be written from the look-up table 18 into the transaction store. The store outputs prices successively to the display.

As well as reading sale items, the scanner may read system control commands, for example an end of multiple transaction commands. When the processor 16 recognises such a command the decoder is instructed to bypass the look-up table 18 and transmit the data from to the transaction store.

An adding means such as a logical arithmetic unit in the CPU adds the stored transactions 20 and outputs the total to the display. The scanner may then be used to transmit the contents of the transaction store to a cash till via infra-red transmitter 22 or to a system computer or cash register, as will be described, although any other remote transmitter may be used.

Although shown as two separate spaced apart components the transmitter 22 and sensor 12 may in practice be a single component comprising a pair of LED's arranged side by side. This has the advantage that the apparatus does not have to be manipulated or repositioned to transmit data, increasing the facility of the scanner.

Following completion of the above series of events the transaction store will be cleared by a reset pulse from the processor 16. However this information is still held in the store at a separate location. This may be programmed into the system software so that the pulse is sent automatically. Alternatively, a 'transaction start' bar code may be used which sends a reset command to the store 20 in the same manner as the end of transaction command.

Referring now to Figure 2 there is shown schematically how a conventional cash till such as is used in retail may be modified for use with the scanner of Figure 1. The figure shows the elements of a board which may be included in the till to enable it to bypass the normal keyboard functions of the till.

In conventional electronic cash tills each key of a keyboard has a function associated with it. Some of these functions may be a department indicator to indicate the department from which an article relates, others may be programmed with the prices of individual articles etc.

The additional board includes an infra-red sensor 30 which is arranged to receive data transmitted by the transmitter 22 of the remote scanner, and a decoder 32 which decodes received data into the required standard for the till in use. This data is output to a keyboard simulator 34 which sends out commands to a register 36 identical to those which an actual keyboard 38 would send. Thus, if a user transmits a transaction from the hand set 10 which comprises a data stream representing a lager and glass of wine followed by an end of transaction command, the keyboard simulator will send to the register the output which the keyboard would have sent if the operator had pressed buttons on the keyboard programmed for lager and wine.

The register 36 sends address codes to a look-up table 40 which reads prestored price data for each address and outputs these to a display 42. Of course, the board is integrated with the existing till circuitry such that 'till open', totallina and other commands are available to the user in the normal manner.

It will be appreciated that the system described has a number of advantages over existing cash tills which use bar code readers which are hard wired to the till. With such readers the goods to be purchased have to be brought to the till and read by the till user. With the system described a user can read the codes anywhere in a store or restaurant and wherever the user is he has a running total available without having to refer to the till. Once a series of transactions has been finished, by user can return to the till and download the information to the till by the remote infra-red link.

In addition any number of handsets may be used with a given till. For example three tills may be operating in a bar or night club with twelve staff, each of which is provided with a handset. The till may be programmed to receive data t.ransmitted from any of the handsets which reduces greatly congestion around the tills.

Each handset may also transmit a handset identifier which can be recorded in a separate memory (not shown) in the till board 28 and read at periodic intervals, eg. to monitor operator performance.

Figure 3 shows a modification to the system of Figure 2 in which a system computer 40 is linked by a two way connection to the keyboard simulator of the cash till. This arrangement has the advantage that the simulator of each till can be programmed centrally. Moreover, the computer can be provided with a charging porti/communication port through which the EPROM look-up tables of the hand held scanners may be reprogrammed from the computer.

Figure 4 shows a further embodiment of the invention which may be used with or without a two-way computer link as shown in Figure 3. In this embodiment the cash till used is provided simply with a till draw and a display. In other words there is no keyboard or keyboard simulator. The till includes a sensor 50 and decoder 52, together with a display 54 and till draw 56. Decoded price information is displayed directly and a 'transaction ended' command at the decoder is sent directly to the till draw to cause that to open.

The values from the decoder may be linked via a two-way data link with the central computer 40 of Figure 3. The decoder 52 will transmit a transaction to the computer and be ready to receive a fresh transaction. Alternatively a memory may be included in which untransmitted transactions are stored for future reading.

Claims (8)

1. A system for reading and displaying the prices of items, comprising at least one hand-held scanning device having sensor means arranged to detect external coded information, a microprocessor and memory means arranged to process the output of the sensor means, integral display means providing a display based on the sensed coded information and transmission means for transmitting the information displayed to a remote location; and at least one cash till or other receiver havina a sensor for receiving the information transmitted from a remote location by the hand-held scanning device and a display for displaying the received information.

2. A system according to Claim 1, wherein the system further comDrises a control computer connected to the cash till by a two-way data link.

3. A system according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein the cash till further comprises a keyboard simulator which simulates address information from an existing keyboard on receipt of data transmitted from the remote handheld scanner.

4. A system according to any of Claims 1, 2 or 3 comprising a plurality of hand-held scanners and a Dlurality of cash tills, wherein the scanners are programmable to transmit information to selected ones of the cash tills.

5. A cash till system substantially as herein described, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

6. A conventional electronic cash register having a keyboard with a number of keys, each of which are programmed to send a unique signal regarding goods associated with the keys, for example price to a central processor for processing, characterised by a sensor for sensing data transmitted from a remote hand- held scanner, said data being based upon coded information sensed by the scanner and information contained in a memory means of the scanner, keyboard simulation means for receiving data received by the sensor and simulating the function of keys of the keyboard in accordance with the nature of the data received, and simulating the keyboard signals and sending them to the CPU to act upon said information in the same way.

7. A cash till system for reading and displaying the prices of items substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

8. A conventional electronic cash register modified substantially as herein described with reference to Figure 2 of the accompanying drawings.