JPH05166070A - Pos system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make the memory content equivalent at the recovery from a fault in the duplex POS system having a plurarity of memories holding the current cost data of the merchandise. CONSTITUTION:The present cost data of the merchandise is held in a volatile memory provided on terminal controllers(TC) 10 and 11. After one of the power source of the memories is turned off, the cost data in the other memory is copied in the memory at the time of recovery.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a POS (Point Of Sales) system, and more particularly to a PLU (Price Look UP) memory recovery process in a Duplex POS system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in this type of POS system, a magnetic disk device for storing a product code and price data of the product and a volatile storage device for expanding and holding the product code and price data in the magnetic disk device. Two terminal controllers (TC) having a PLU memory are provided. The same number of POS terminals are connected to each of these two terminal controllers. For example, 1
Up to 32 POs for each terminal controller
Assuming that S terminals can be connected, 15 POS terminals are connected to one terminal controller, and a total of 30 POS terminals operate.

At the start of operation (for example, in the morning), the product code and the price data are expanded from the magnetic disk device into the PLU memory, and each POS terminal accesses the PLU memory to obtain the price data. Sent to the side. That is, when the bar code is read by the POS terminal, the PLU memory is accessed based on the product code and the price data is sent out.

When the price data is changed during operation, the price data is rewritten to each PLU memory in the two terminal controllers by key input from the host computer side.

At the end of operation (for example, at night), the PLU
The system is powered off after the price data in the memory is written to the magnetic disk device. Then, when the operation is started again (for example, the next morning), the data is similarly expanded from the magnetic disk device to the PLU memory.

Data in the magnetic disk device is temporarily transferred to the PLU.
The reason for expanding to the memory side is that a high access speed is required. Since a well-known volatile memory is used for this PLU memory, when the power of its own terminal controller is cut off, the contents held therein are erased.

In the above-mentioned conventional duplex POS system, the host computers only mutually monitor the terminal controllers during operation.
When a double failure occurs between the host computer and one of the terminal controllers, the power supply of the terminal controller is manually turned off / on, which is troublesome. Further, even after the restoration, the data in the PLU memory is not equivalent between the two terminal controllers.

Furthermore, if a failure occurs while the PLU data is being saved as a file in the magnetic disk device, it is necessary to correct the file after restoration, which requires a great deal of time and labor. There was a drawback that it required.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks, and an object of the present invention is to provide a POS system capable of effectively restoring the contents of a PLU memory.

[0010]

The POS system according to the present invention, when the volatile first and second memories for holding the current price data of goods and the first memory are restored after the power supply is cut off, Means for copying the price data in the second memory to the first memory.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an operating state of an embodiment of a POS system according to the present invention. In FIG. 1A, the POS system according to the present embodiment has two terminal controllers 10 and 1 in a host computer (HOST) 9.
1 are connected and configured. Further, it is assumed that 15 POS terminals (not shown) are connected to each of the terminal controllers 10 and 11 via the communication cable switcher 12. In addition, 13 is a communication cable.

The terminal controller 10 has the same internal structure as that of the terminal controller 11, and includes a magnetic disk unit (DISK) 20, a PLU memory 19 and a controller (not shown) as shown in FIG. ing.

As described above, the price data of the product is stored in the magnetic disk device 20, and this data is stored in P
The system is operated while being expanded in the LU memory 19. Then, when price data is added or changed, new data is written from the host computer to this PLU memory.

Next, the processing contents of this system will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 3. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation processing procedure of the system of FIG.

Originally, in the duplex POS system, the monitoring message 15 is issued by the host computer 9 to the terminal controllers 10 and 11 after the system has normally started up. When one terminal controller goes down, the communication cable under the
It continued to operate by switching to the normal terminal controller side via 2. This is the state shown in FIG.

In the system of this embodiment, the communication cable 14 connecting both terminal controllers sends a mutual monitoring message 16 at regular intervals to perform mutual monitoring of the terminal controllers (step 1). At this time, the abnormality of the partner terminal controller is checked depending on whether or not a response is returned from the partner terminal controller to the mutual monitoring message 16 (step 2).

When there is no response to the mutual monitoring message 16, retry processing is performed a certain number of times and the mutual monitoring message 16 is sent again (steps 3 → 4 → 1).
…). In the retry process, the retry counter is set to -1.
By doing so, the number of times is counted (step 4) and checked until the predetermined number of retries is completed (step 3).

When the predetermined number of retries has been completed, it is considered that the partner terminal controller has gone down (power is cut off), and the communication cable selector 12 switches the subordinate communication cables (step 5). Connect the terminal to the normal terminal controller side.

When the switching of the communication cable is completed normally, the reboot message 17 is transmitted from the normal terminal controller to the abnormal terminal controller (step 6). This is the state shown in FIG. By this reboot request, the abnormal terminal controller is restarted, and when it is booted normally, the reboot normal notification 18 is sent back (step 7). This is Figure 1 (c)
It is the state of.

In response to this notification, the communication cable switching unit 12 switches back the communication cables under its control. When the switchback is normally completed, all the data in the PLU memory in the normal terminal controller is copied to the PLU memory in the restarted terminal controller via the communication cable 14 (step 8).

When this copy is performed normally and the contents held in the PLU memories in both terminal controllers become equivalent, the operation as the duplex POS system is restarted.

As described above, in the present example, the duplex POS system restarts by mutual down monitoring between terminal controllers, and when one terminal controller is down, a normal power off / on reboot message is sent from the terminal controller. And then
After restarting, recovery by PLU memory copy is automatically performed.

In the above description, the case where two terminal controllers are provided has been described.
It is obvious that the present invention can be similarly applied to the case where more terminal controllers are provided.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the power of the PLU memory is restored after the power is cut off,
By copying the data in other memory, all PL
The effect is that the data in the U memory can be made equivalent.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an operating state of a POS system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an internal configuration of a terminal controller in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operational processing procedure of the system of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 9 Host computer 10,11 Terminal controller 12 Communication cable selector 13,14 Communication cable

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A volatile first and second memory for holding current price data of a commodity, and a memory in the second memory when the first memory is restored after power is turned off. Means for copying price data to the first memory.