JP2939695B2 - Card reader / writer - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a card reader / writer for recording and reproducing information on a card.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, this kind of card reader / writer is
It is arranged in a vending machine or the like that sells articles, and when a user inserts a card to purchase an article, the value information is read from the inserted card and the display is performed. When an article is sold by the user pressing an article selection button or the like, value information corresponding to the sold article is subtracted from the read value information, recorded on a card, and then discharged. .

Such a card reader / writer has a read head and a recording head, and reproduces information from the card by the read head, and writes information on the card by the recording head. Here, when information is written to the card by the recording head, the information is read again from the card by the reading head to check whether the information has been correctly written, and when a writing error occurs, it is called a retry. I try to write again. Generally, when writing information to a card, a writing error occurs at a certain frequency, and therefore, the maximum number of retries is conventionally set in advance. If a write error occurs, retry is performed within the range of the maximum number of retries, and if an error still occurs after retry is performed for the maximum number of retries, the card is determined to be a defective card.

[0004]

In the recording head and the reading head described above, the frequency of occurrence of writing errors and reading errors is low at the initial stage. Tend to be higher. For this reason, the number of cards determined to be erroneous after retrying for the maximum number of retries described above increases, and there is a problem that even good cards are determined to be bad cards. Further, if the maximum number of retries is set to a large value, the retry is performed for this number of times in the case of a defective card, so that there is a problem that it takes time to process the card. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to set an optimum maximum number of retries in accordance with the use condition of the device.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve such a problem, the present invention provides a method for retrying recording and reproduction of information when an error occurs during recording and reproduction of information on the card. maximum number of attempts (i.e., the maximum number of retries) in the card reader-writer for executing content, a counter number which is retried in the event of error counts the abnormal termination when it reaches the maximum number of attempts minute, each card memory and arithmetic hand value of memory is calculating the frequency division error of the value of the counter when it reaches a predetermined value above the predetermined value to store the number of times that the recording and reproducing against information
And updating means for increasing or decreasing the maximum number of trials according to whether the division value of the arithmetic means is equal to or greater than a predetermined value.

[0006]

When recording and reproducing information to and from a card, when an error occurs, the frequency of occurrence of the error is calculated by the calculation means, and the maximum number of trials is updated according to the calculation result. As a result, the maximum number of trials can be set according to the usage status of the device. Further, the frequency of occurrence of an error is calculated based on the value counted when the number of retries at the time of occurrence of the error reaches the maximum number of attempts and the number of times of recording and reproducing information for each card. You. As a result, the frequency of occurrence of an error can be easily calculated.
Further, the value of the counter when the value of the memory reaches the predetermined value is divided by the predetermined value, and the maximum number of trials is adjusted according to whether the divided value is equal to or more than a predetermined value. As a result, if the above-mentioned predetermined value is set to an appropriate value, the frequency of occurrence of errors can be accurately calculated, and therefore, the maximum number of trials optimal for the device can be obtained.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a card reader / writer according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a card reader / writer for writing and reading data to and from a card (not shown); 1 is a control unit that controls, for example, a vending machine in which the vending machine 1 is housed. Here, the card reader / writer 1 is configured as follows. That is, 11 is the card reader / writer 1
Is a control circuit that performs all of the above control and is composed of a CPU.
12 is a transmission / reception circuit for transmitting and receiving data to and from the control unit 2, 13 is an EEPROM in which function data necessary for the card reader / writer 1 is set, 14 is a ROM for storing a program executed by the control circuit 11, and 15 is a data storage The contents of the RAM are backed up by the power supply of the control unit 2.

Reference numeral 16 denotes a punch unit for punching a card, 17 denotes a shutter unit for preventing double insertion of a card, 18 denotes an insertion detection sensor for detecting insertion of a card, and 19 denotes a card not shown. This is a position detection sensor that is disposed in the transport path and detects the position of the card in the transport path. Reference numeral 20 denotes an optical sensor that optically detects a bar code given to the card, reference numeral 21 denotes a read head that reads information recorded on a magnetic track of the card, reference numeral 22 denotes a recording head that writes information to the magnetic track of the card, 23 is a motor for transporting the inserted card along the transport path;
Is an encoder for detecting the rotation speed of the motor 23.

When a card is inserted into the apparatus and is detected via the insertion detecting sensor 18, the control circuit 11 drives the motor 23 to convey the card along the card conveying path. When the position of the card is confirmed via the position sensor 19, the driving of the motor 23 is stopped, and the read head 2 disposed near the position sensor 19 is stopped.
1 to read the value information of the card,
To the control unit 2 for controlling the vending machine described above. The control unit 2 displays the value information on the display unit of the vending machine. And by the user,
When the purchase operation of the article is performed in the vending machine, the value information corresponding to the article to be purchased is subtracted from the value information, and the balance information is sent to the control circuit 11 via the transmission / reception circuit 12.

When receiving the balance information, the control circuit 11 drives the recording head 22 and writes the balance information to the card. Then, the written remaining amount information is read through the read head 21. If this matches the information before writing, the motor 2 determines that the information has been normally written on the card.
3 is driven again, the card is conveyed and ejected, and the article is sold. In addition, a retry operation of reading the balance information written on the card, and if the read balance information does not match the information before writing, writes the same balance information again on the card and reads it again and compares it with the information before writing. Execute The number of retry operations is set to a maximum of two times as an initial value.
Therefore, if the information written on the card does not match the information before writing even after performing the retry twice, it is determined that the card processing has been abnormally terminated.

If the head is frequently used and wears due to aging, errors such as reading errors and writing errors occur more frequently. For this reason, if the maximum number of retries is set to two as described above, abnormal processing of the card frequently occurs, causing various troubles. Since the retry is executed up to this number of times, the processing time of the card becomes longer. For this reason, in the present invention, the above-described maximum number of retries can be changed according to the use status of the device.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the main part of the present invention, showing the operation of the control circuit 11 for updating the maximum number of retries. The operation of the main part of the present invention will be described in detail according to this flowchart. First, it is assumed that the initial maximum number of retries is two, and this maximum number of retries is stored in the RAM 15. here,
The insertion detection sensor 18 detects that a card has been inserted into the apparatus.
When the control circuit 11 detects "Y" in step ST1 and drives the motor 23, the control circuit 11 conveys the inserted card to the position of the reading head 21. Then, in step ST2, the value information of the card is read through the reading head 21.

The read value information is transmitted to the control unit 2 and various processes such as receiving the balance information from the control unit 2 due to sale of articles and the like are performed in step ST.
Execute in 3. Thereafter, the control circuit 11 proceeds to step ST4.
Then, the recording head 22 is driven to execute a data writing process for writing the remaining amount information to the card. Next, the control circuit 11 reproduces the value information written on the card via the read head 21, compares the reproduced information with the balance information before writing on the card, and determines whether or not a write error has occurred in step ST5. To judge.

Here, when a write error occurs, step S
If "Y" is determined in T5, it is determined in step ST6 whether the number of retries has reached the maximum number of retries.
If this is determined to be “N”, the recording head 2
2 to write the above balance information again to the card,
A retry operation of reproducing the written remaining amount information by the read head 21 is performed, and the number of retries is counted, and the process returns to step ST5. Make a judgment.

[0015] Such a retry operation is performed until the maximum number of retries is reached.
At step ST7, an error warning is issued and the RAM 15
In step ST8, the abnormal end number counter provided in the predetermined area is incremented by one, and the write (write) counter provided in a separate area of the RAM 15 is increased in step ST9.
To increase by one. Note that no write error occurs,
If "N" is determined in step ST5, it is determined that the card processing has been normally completed, and the abnormal end number counter is not counted up, but only the write number counter is counted up in step ST9.

The processing of the card inserted into the apparatus in this manner is executed. Such a card processing is executed every time the card is inserted. As a result, in the case of the present embodiment, the same apparatus performs 10, 10 When the value of the write counter reaches 10,000 times due to the processing of 000 cards,
In step ST11, an arithmetic process is performed in which a value obtained by dividing the number of abnormal terminations described above by the number of writes (that is, 10,000 times) is expressed as a percentage.

The frequency of occurrence of an error is calculated based on such calculation processing, and the maximum number of retries is updated in a step described later in accordance with the frequency of occurrence. Therefore, it is possible to make the maximum number of retries variable according to the use condition of the apparatus, and it is possible to solve various problems caused by the fixedly set maximum number of retries as in the related art. Further, since the frequency of occurrence of an error is calculated by the above-described arithmetic processing, the frequency of occurrence can be easily calculated. Further, if the number of writes (in this embodiment, 10,000 times) is set to an appropriate value, the frequency of occurrence of errors can be accurately calculated.

After calculating the frequency of occurrence of errors in step ST11, the result of the calculation in step ST11 is 1
% Is determined in step ST12. And
If it is 1% or more, the above-mentioned maximum number of retries is set to step S
In T13, it is increased by one. Note that the maximum number of retries is 10 and cannot be increased beyond this maximum value. If the calculation result in step ST11 is less than 1% and it is determined as "Y" in step ST14, the maximum number of retries is reduced by one in step ST15.
Note that the maximum value of the maximum number of retries is 2 and cannot be reduced below this minimum value.

After updating the maximum number of retries, the value of the write counter is cleared in step ST16, the value of the abnormal end counter is cleared in step ST17, and the process proceeds to step ST18 to eject the card. I do. If the number of times of writing is less than 10,000, processing such as updating the maximum number of retries is not performed, and the process immediately proceeds to step ST18 to eject the card.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, when recording and reproducing information on a card, when an error occurs, the frequency of occurrence of the error is calculated, and the maximum number of trials is calculated according to the calculation result. Is updated, the maximum number of trials can be set freely according to the usage status of the device. Also, based on the value of a counter that is counted when the number of retries at the time of occurrence of an error reaches the maximum number of attempts and the value of a memory that stores the number of times information is recorded and reproduced for each card. Since the frequency of occurrence of the error is calculated, the frequency of occurrence of the error can be easily calculated. In addition, the value of the counter when the value of the memory reaches the predetermined value is divided by the predetermined value, and the maximum number of trials is adjusted according to whether the divided value is equal to or more than a predetermined value. If the number of times of recording and reproduction is set to an appropriate value, the frequency of occurrence of an error can be accurately calculated, and thus the maximum number of trials optimal for the apparatus can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of a card reader / writer according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the apparatus in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 card reader / writer 2 control unit 11 control circuit (CPU) 15 RAM 18 insertion detection sensor 19 position detection sensor 21 reading head 22 recording head 23 motor

Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-2-68691 (JP, A) JP-A-2-123381 (JP, A) JP-A-3-137779 (JP, A) JP-A-6-301826 (JP) JP-A-4-44667 (JP, A) JP-A-57-10065 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G06K 17/00 G06K 7/00 G06F 11/34

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A card reader / writer for retrying recording and reproduction of information for a predetermined maximum number of times when an error occurs during recording and reproduction of information on a card. The number of trials is the maximum trial
Counter that counts the number of abnormal terminations when the number of times is reached
And the number of times information has been recorded for each card
A memory, and when the value of the memory reaches a predetermined value,
Calculating means for dividing the value of the counter at the predetermined value to calculate the frequency of occurrence of the error, the division value of said calculating means is constant
Updating means for adjusting the maximum number of trials according to whether the number is equal to or greater than a value .