JPH1013173A - Pos terminal equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow the POS terminal equipment to automatically or manually adjust a buzzer tone volume, depending on a sound which is generated from its own sound volume. SOLUTION: When bar-code information of an article from a bar-code scanner 2 or a keyboard 1 enters the POS terminal equipment, a signal-generating circuit 3 generates a buzzer signal (a). A sound collection microphone 6 always collects surrounding noise, and a noise measurement circuit 7 generates the noise data (b). The noise data (b) are fed to a signal control circuit 4, via an own production sound data elimination circuit 8. When the buzzer signal (a) is given to the signal control circuit 4, the signal control circuit 4 changes a buzzer sound output signal (c) to be stronger when the surrounding noise is high and to be weaker, when the surrounding noise is small, matching with a level of the noise data (b) and gives the resulting output signal (c) to the own production sound data elimination circuit 8 and a speaker 9.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a POS terminal, and more particularly, to a volume control method for a POS terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In retail stores such as supermarkets and convenience stores, calculation of price adjustments of products sold to customers and various data (sale date and time, discount rate, customer For the purpose of managing and utilizing age, gender, etc.), POS (Point Of Sales: point-of-sale information) terminal devices are widely used.

In a POS terminal device, when an operator reads a bar code attached to a product for inputting the product by a bar code scanner, a buzzer sound is immediately output from a speaker in order to notify the operator of the completion of the reading. Is to sound. Therefore, when the buzzer sound does not sound, the operator causes the bar code scanner to read the bar code again or takes necessary measures. For a product without a barcode, a buzzer sounds similarly when a preset key on the keyboard is input.

[0004] This buzzer sound, or the length of time during which the buzzer sound is sounding, and changes in the level and tone (for example, in the case of actual
In such a manner as proposed in US Pat. No. 2,170,170), the operator can determine whether the bar code has been read normally or the key input on the keyboard has been performed normally. .

In a supermarket or the like where a POS terminal is installed, the POS terminal is generally placed in a place where the amount of noise is large. Depending on the presence or absence, or the selling voice of a special sale item or the like, the in-store noise level changes greatly from time to time, and it is necessary to adjust the buzzer volume of the POS terminal device accordingly.

Conventionally, the volume of the buzzer has been adjusted by an operator manually operating the volume. But,
This method is extremely troublesome for the operator.

To solve this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No.
No. 1208 proposes a method as shown in FIG. That is, in FIG. 2, when the switch 13 and the interlocking switch 14 for manual / automatic switching are turned down ("manual") as shown in FIG. A buzzer sound is sent from the speaker 9 via the container 11.
Therefore, the buzzer sound is adjusted by manually adjusting the variable resistor 11.

Changeover switch 13 and interlocking switch 1
When the transistor 4 is tilted to the "automatic" side (in the direction opposite to the direction shown), the transistor 10 functions as a kind of variable resistor, and the buzzer sound is adjusted by controlling the base current. The output level of the sound collecting microphone 6 that picks up ambient sounds is rectified and converted into DC by the rectifier circuit 15 and the capacitor 16 and fed back to the transistor 10. In this case, if the surroundings are extremely quiet, there is a danger that the buzzer sound will not be produced.

[0009]

However, in the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-241208 shown in FIG. 2, when automatic is selected by manual / automatic switching, the operator adjusts the automatic volume. If you find the buzzer volume hard to hear, or too conspicuous,
Or multiple similar devices are arranged adjacent to each other,
For example, when the buzzer volume is too high and the buzzer sound of the adjacent device is annoying, there is a problem that there is no means for manually adjusting the buzzer volume whose automatic volume has been adjusted.

Also, when the buzzer sounds continuously, a buzzer sound from the speaker of the own device is picked up by the sound collecting microphone of the own device, and a positive feedback is applied, and the buzzer sound increases steadily as it rises. Occurs.

An object of the present invention is to provide a POS terminal device capable of automatically adjusting the volume of a buzzer except for a sound emitted from the device itself and adjusting the volume manually.

[0012]

A POS terminal according to the present invention comprises: a buzzer signal generating means for generating a buzzer signal;
Noise data generating means for detecting ambient noise and generating noise data, buzzer sound generating means for controlling the level of the buzzer signal and transmitting the buzzer sound from a speaker, and deleting the buzzer sound of the own device from the noise data Self-buzzer sound removing means for generating the self-buzzer sound removing noise data, controlling the buzzer sound generating means in accordance with the level of the self-buzzer sound removing noise data, and manually controlling the buzzer sound generating means And means for performing the operation.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The operation of the present invention is as follows.
A noise measurement circuit, a self-sound sound data deletion circuit, and a signal control circuit are provided, and the self-sound sound data deletion circuit ignores noise data during a period when the buzzer sound is transmitted from the own device or is transmitted from the own device. The frequency band of the buzzer sound is deleted and used as noise level data, and the signal control circuit adjusts the buzzer volume based on the noise level data.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of a POS terminal device according to the present invention, and the same parts as those in FIG. 2 are denoted by the same reference numerals. In addition, overlapping description is omitted.

In FIG. 1, when bar code information of a product is input to a POS terminal device by a bar code scanner 2 or a keyboard 1, a signal generating circuit 3 generates a buzzer signal a. The sound collecting microphone 6 always collects ambient noise, and the noise measuring circuit 7 generates noise data b. The noise data b is sent to the signal control circuit 4 through the self-sound sound data deletion circuit 8.

When the buzzer signal a is input to the signal control circuit 4, the signal control circuit 4 adjusts the buzzer sound output signal c according to the level of the noise data b when the ambient noise is large and when the ambient noise is small. Changes the buzzer sound output signal c to a low value, the self-sound sound data deleting circuit 8 and the speaker 9
Send to The speaker 9 outputs the buzzer sound output signal c as a buzzer sound.

Therefore, when the ambient noise is high, the buzzer sound is large, and when the ambient noise is low, the buzzer sound is low. As a result, the volume of the buzzer sound is changed according to the level of the surrounding noise. Becomes

On the other hand, during the period in which the buzzer sound output signal c is sent, the self-sound sound data deletion circuit 8 removes the buzzer sound of the own device from the noise data b based on the buzzer sound output signal c, and performs a signal control circuit. Send to 4. Therefore, when the noise collected by the sound collecting microphone 6 due to the buzzer sound of the own device increases, the buzzer sound from the speaker 9 is not increased.

The self-sound tone data deleting circuit 8 deletes the self-sound tone data b during the period in which the buzzer sound output signal c is sent, or removes the noise data b immediately before the buzzer sound output signal c is sent. A method of holding the noise data b or passing the noise data b to a filter that removes the frequency band of the buzzer sound of the own device is used.

The volume control 5 is for adjusting the degree to which the signal control circuit 4 changes the intensity of the buzzer sound output signal c in accordance with the level of the noise data b. Can be manually operated to set the buzzer volume for ambient noise to a desired level.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, the operator hears the buzzer sound without being affected by the buzzer sound level of the own device, and once manually outputs the buzzer sound against the ambient noise by the volume control. If adjusted, there is an effect that it automatically responds to a subsequent change in ambient noise, and does not make the buzzer sound difficult to hear or too loud.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a conventional POS terminal device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Keyboard 2 Barcode scanner 3 Signal generation circuit 4 Signal control circuit 5 Volume control 6 Sound collection microphone 7 Noise measurement circuit 8 Self-oscillation sound data deletion circuit 9 Speaker

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A buzzer signal generating means for generating a buzzer signal, a noise data generating means for detecting ambient noise and generating noise data, and a buzzer sound for controlling the level of the buzzer signal and transmitting it from a speaker as a buzzer sound. Generating means;
A self-buzzer sound deleting unit for generating the self-buzzer sound deletion noise data by deleting the buzzer sound of the own device from the noise data; and controlling the buzzer sound generation unit according to a level of the self-buzzer sound deletion noise data. And a means for manually controlling the buzzer sound generating means. 2. The POS terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the buzzer signal generating means generates the buzzer signal at a timing when barcode reading of a product is completed or input from a keyboard is completed. 3. The POS terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the self-buzzer sound removing unit removes the noise data while the buzzer sound is present. 4. The POS terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the self-buzzer sound deleting unit holds the noise data immediately before the buzzer sound is present. 5. The POS terminal device according to claim 1, wherein the self-buzzer sound removing unit includes a filter for removing a frequency band of the buzzer sound of the own device.