Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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CASH REGISTER WIT~ DISPLAY FOR DISPLAYING PLURAL GOODS
Background of the Invention
In a cash register or like business machine,
information regarding purchased goods or items is
entered via a keyboard, a scanner or other input
device, the information is printed on a receipt and/or
a journal, and the information is displayed on a
display unit. In the conventionai cash register, only
that information relative to an item or goods which is
currently being input or which has just been input
into the register is displayed on an operator display
unit.
Recent developments in the merchandising
field have included a cash register having a cathode
ray tube (CRT) with a large screen which is used as an
operator display. The operator display is for
displaying several items or information regarding such
items which have just been entered into the register.
A customer display unit is provided for displaying
only the last item entered into the register.
In the above-mentioned conventional cash
register, it is sometimes necessary to confirm that
items or information regarding such items have already
been entered into the register. This requires
checking the information which has been printed on a
journal or on a receipt, except for that item or those
items which are displayed on the operator display
unit. In case the information has already been
entered into the register and has been printed on the
journal, it is necessary to look through the journal
window to confirm which items have been included in
the contents printed on the journal. A viewing
through the journal window shows only the last item or
several items which have been printed on the journal.
If it is desired to confirm entering and printing of
additional items, it is necessary to manually feed the
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journal to a position where such additional items can
be viewed and confirmed. In similar manner, it may be
desired to see the information or data which has been
printed on the receipt, and it is necessary to
manually feed the receipt through a slot in the
register to confirm the items on the receipt. It is
seen that this manner of confirming the data or
information is time consuming and inefficient on the
part of the operator.
Additionally, data or information which has
just been entered into the register is displayed on
the customer display unit. While the customer can
view and confirm each item of data or information that
appears on the customer display unit, the customer
cannot check the current subtotal or the total price
of the items. Therefore, it sometimes results in the
subtotal or the total price being beyond an exact
amount, or even an estimate of the total to be
registered, and the customer cannot pay for all the
items. Some of the items or articles of goods may
have to be set back or canceled and the records of the
register need to be corrected. This correction of the
journal and of the receipt requires additional time on
the part of the operator which further slows the
register operation.
Representative documentation in the area of
operator and customer displays includes United States
Patent No. 4,638,312, issled to B. A. Quinn et al. on
January 20, 1987, which discloses an order entry
system which includes a display showing elements or
items from a menu. A control element is used to
calculate the monetary value of an order.
United States Patent No, 4,656,344, issued to
B. M. Mergenthaler et al. on April 7, 1987, discloses
a checkout counter with the price of the item
displayed on a display unit and printed on a receipt.
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United States Patent No. 4,660,663, issued to
G. L. Amacher et al. on April 28, 1987, discloses a
checkout counter with a customer display which
displays the price and weight of the items.
United States Patent No, 4,707,785, issued to
H. Takagi on November 17, 1987, discloses an
electronic cash register having memory ~eans, a
keyboard, and a printer. New price data and
difference data along with fixed price data are
printed on the receipt.
United States Patent No. 4,797,540, issued to
R. Kimizu on January 10, 1989, discloses a terminal
device having a front side display for the customer
and a rear side display for the operator.
United States Patent No. 4,852,042, issued to
A. Zur Muhlen et al. on July 25, 1989, discloses a
journal window display for displaying a plurality of
items with controls to scroll the items and to count
the items.
Summary of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cash
register such as a point of sale (POS) terminal or an
electronic cash register (ECR) or the like which is
used for registration of sold articles or goods and
the payment or settlement of accounts for such
articles or goods.
In accordance with the present invention,
there is provided a cash register with associated
peripheral equipment coupled to complete a purchase of
goods transaction and having an operator display unit
which includes a display area and a registered item
storage area for sequentially storing data or
information in the order in which the data or
information are input into the register, the most
recent registered data or information associated with
an item or article being displayed in large size in
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the display area and the data or information on a
plurality of previously registered items or articles
being displayed on said operator display unit in small
size simultaneously with the large size display in the
display area with respect to said plurality of items
or articles on a last-in first-out basis.
In another embodiment of the present
invention, there is provided a cash register having a
customer display unit which includes a display area on
which a plurality of lines of data or information can
be displayed and arranged such that data or
information relating to the price of the most recent
item or article registered is displayed in one portion
of the display area and a total of the prices of
previously registered items or articles is displayed
in another portion of the display area.
In accordance with the above discussion, a
principal object of the present invention is to
provide a cash register or like business machine
wherein data or information already entered into the
register can be confirmed by the operator.
Another object of the present invention is to
provide a cash register having an operator display
unit which includes one display portion for displaying
the last-entered item and another display portion for
displaying previously entered items simultaneously
with said last-entered item.
An additional object of the present invention
is to provide a cash register having a customer
display unit wherein a unit price of each registered
item is displayed and a subtotal or a total price of
all previously registered items are displayed.
A further object of the present invention is
to provide a cash register having an operator display
unit and a customer display unit to enable
confirmation of registered data or information and to
display a subtotal or a total of prices of items which
have been entered into the register.
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Additional advantages and features of the
present invention will become apparent and fully
understood from a reading of the following description
taken together with the annexed drawing.
Brief Description of the Drawing
The single figure is a block diagram
incorporating the structure of the present invention.
Description of the Preferred Embodiment
A cash register or point of sale terminal,
generally designated as 10, includes a keyboard 12 for
use by the operator in manually inputting data or
information relative to prices of goods, items or
articles purchased by the customer. A scanner 14 is
used to input data or information relative to prices
of goods which include a universal product code (UPC)
or like bar code and which scanner reads the bar code
to input the data into the register 10.
Data or information is sent from the keyboard
12 by means of a bus 16 and data or information is
sent from the scanner 14 by means of a bus 18 to a
system bus 20 which is coupled to a central processing
unit (CPU) 22. The central processing unit 22 reads
out data or information relative to prices of items or
articles from a price look up (PLU) file (not shown).
The PLU file may be either internally or externally
provided and the CPU 22 calculates the subtotal of the
registered items or articles. The CPU 22 processes
the input data or information into data to be printed
on a receipt and/or a journal by a printer 24. The
data from the CPU 22 is sent by means of a bus 26 to a
printer control 28 which is coupled to the printer 24
by means of a bus 30.
The processed data is also transmitted along
the system bus 20 to an operator display control 32 by
means of a bus 34. The operator display control 32 is
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coupled by means of a bus 36 to an operator display
unit 38. The operator display unit 38 includes a
first portion 40 and a second portion 42. The
portions 40 and 42 may occupy separate screens or may
occupy a split screen of the display unit 38.
The processed data is also transmitted along
the system bus 20 to a customer display control 44 by
means of a bus 46. The customer display control 44 is
coupled by means of a bus 48 to a customer display
unit 50. The CPU 22 can be coupled to additional
registers (not shown) by means of the system bus 20.
Input data and item or article data are
transmitted from the CPU 22 to the operator display
control 32. The operator display control 32 includes
a registered data memory 52 for storing individual
input data and item or article data in the order in
which the individual data are input and in which the
items or articles are registered. Data transmitted
from the CPU 22 is sequentially stored in the data
memory 52 and displayed in a large size on portion 40
of the operator display unit 38. Information or data
stored in the data memory 52 is also displayed in a
small size on portion 42 of the operator display unit
38. The data or information is displayed on portion
42 of the operator display unit 38 in the reverse
order in which the individual data is input into the
data memory 52.
As mentioned above, the most recently
registered data (pudding 100) is displayed in large
size on the display portion 40 so that the operator
can readily confirm the article data which has just
been registered. The subtotal of prices of registered
articles which is calculated by the CPU 22 or the most
recently registered data may be displayed (pudding
100) in the lower row of items on the display portion
42. The number of items of the most recent registered
data, that is, the number of items which are displayed
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on the portion 42 of the operator display unit 38, can
be changed as required by the particular operation In
case that data which have been stored previously to
the storage of the registered article data which now
appears on the portion 42 of the display unit 38 needs
to be confirmed, the previously stored data can be
read out from the data memory 52 by means of operating
the keyboard 12 and displayed on the portion 42. As
an alternative, the data in the data memory 52 can be
sequentially read out and sequentially displayed, or
displayed by shifts, on the portion 42.
The split display arrangement of the operator
display unit 38, the designation of the number of data
to be displayed, the read out of the specific item of
data from the data memory 52 to be displayed, and the
shift display on the portion 42 are well known in the
art.
Data or information on the subtotal price of
the transactions is transmitted to the customer
display control 44 together with individual input data
and article data. The customer display unit 50 is
constructed such that data can be displayed in
different areas thereof, such data being in the order
of the data displayed in portion 42 of the operator
display unit 38. The most recent input data relative
to the name of the item or article and the article
data (price) are displayed in an upper area of the
customer display unit 50 and the subtotal is displayed
in a lower area of the customer display unit 50. Of
course, the upper and lower arrangement may be
reversed from that just mentioned, as desired by the
particular operation. The subtotal price may be
considered a running or current total for the benefit
of the customer at any time during the registering
transaction.
The input data of the plurality of the most
recent items or articles are displayed on the portions
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40 and 42 of the operator display unit 38. An
alternative arrangement provides that only the article
data which has just been registered is displayed in
normal operation and the data stored in the data
memory 52 are displayed as required by a particular
operation. Additionally, the data memory 52 may be
provided as a part of the CPU 22 rather than the
operator display control 32.
The present invention is constructed such
that the previously registered data can be promptly
confirmed with the provision of the data memory 52 for
storing input data in the order in which the data are
input. Confirmation of such data can be readily
performed by the operator and the efficiency of the
operation is thereby improved. The sequential storage
of input data in the registered data memory 52 permits
switching from the confirming operation of the
registration of a system configuration by viewing the
printing on the journal to an operation by viewing the
display on the operator display unit 38, wherein the
registration of the system configuration can be
effectively performed.
Additionally, the price of each article and
the subtotal of all the purchased articles are
displayed on the customer display unit 50, so that the
customer can see the subtotal of the registered
articles at all times. If the customer sees that the
amount of the registered items does or will exceed the
estimate, the customer can cancel any remaining
articles and not require changing of the registered
data or information.
It is thus seen that the present invention
provides memory means for sequentially storing therein
input data relative to the name of the item or article
or goods purchased and price data associated with the
input data and that such data stored in the memory
means are displayed on the operator display unit for
ready confirmation by the operator.
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Additionally, the present invention provides
a unit price of an item or article and a subtotal or
current total of the prices of the items or articles
which have been registered and which are displayed on
the customer display unit for benefiting the customer.
The structure and arrangement enable the
accomplishment of the objects and advantages mentioned
above, and while the preferred embodiment of the
invention has been disclosed herein, variations
thereof may occur to those skilled in the art. It is
contemplated that all such variations not departing
from the spirit and scope of the invention hereof are
to be construed in accordance with the following
claims.
