Patent GB-905388-A (GB)
Title: Accounting machines
Filed: 1961-03-24
Abstract: 905,388. Accounting-machines. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER CO. March 24, 1961 [April 4, 1960], No. 10872/61. Class 106 (1). An accounting machine has two groups of printing devices which respectively effect printing on two areas of a record material and a selecting device responsive to the presence or absence of a control mark on the record material to determine which of the groups of printing devices shall be effective. The invention is applied to the machine described in Specification 852,827 which is adapted for dealing with banking transactions and which reads an old balance magnetically recorded on the rear of an inserted ledger card and after the entry of credit and/or debit amounts erases the magnetic record of the old balance and records in its place the new balance. A magnetic record is also effected on the ledger card of the next available printing line. The items entered and the new balance are also printed on the face of the ledger card and in the present arrangement, this printing is effected on the left or right halves of the card, Fig. 6, selectively. Normally, the left portion of the card is used initially but when the last line is reached, a record is made in an additional " print control" " magnetic track and when the card is next used printing takes place under the control of that signal on the right portion. In the new balance operation of that transaction, and all subsequent ones when printing takes place on the right, the print control signal is again recorded until the last line is reached. Hammer control mechanism.-A hammer 24, Fig. 2, is provided for each column of each half of the ledger card and is actuated by cams 48 if a link 40 is lowered in known manner by a feeler mechanism 54, 56. The latter senses notched control discs set through internal gearing by various mechanisms of the machine. One of these discs associated with each hammer determines whether or not the hammer shall operate in accordance with whether printing is to be effected in the left or right half of the ledger card. These latter discs are normally positioned so that the left hammers only will be able to operate but may be rotated by a solenoid L20, Fig. 1, acting through a ring gear 80, to another position in which the right hammers only can be effective. The solenoid is energized as described below. A hand lever 116 enables the discs to be rotated in the opposite direction to a third position in which all of the hammers are enabled so that the same data is printed on both the left and right-hand portions of the ledger card. Print control circuit.-The solenoid L20 is energized only when a relay K320, Fig. 4, is de-energized. In all appropriate cycles of the machine, this relay K320 is initially energized over a normally conducting valve 152 but if a signal is received from the magnetic head 172 for the print control track indicating that printing is to be effected on the right of the ledger card, a negative pulse is applied to the grid of the valve 152 to render it non-conducting and so de-energize the relay to cause the solenoid L20 to enable the right-hand hammers. The print control signal is recorded by the head 172 when a circuit is completed either over contacts K320BC2 and K306BC4 or over contacts K320AC2 and K306AC4, the signal recorded being in fact the units linefinding digit signal, derived from the closing at a selected time and in known manner of contacts 194, and applied also to the units line-finding digit head 200. This signal varies with the printing line but, as a print control signal, it is significant only by its presence or absence. The contacts K320BC2 and K320AC2 are controlled by the relay K320 according to whether or not a print control signal is read and the contacts K306BC4 and K306AC4 are operated by a relay which is energized when the ledger card table is in the position for printing on the last line of the ledger card. The arrangement is such that when printing is taking place on the left no print control signal is recorded until printing is taking place on the last line. A signal is then recorded so that in the next series of operations, printing will occur on the right. Moreover, when printing takes place on the right, the sensing of a print control signal will cause such a signal to be recorded again until the last line is reached when no signal will be recorded so that printing will next take place on the left again.