Patent GB-478192-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to cash registers and similar accounting machines
IPC: G06C11/08
Filed: 1936-06-12
Abstract: 478,192. Cash registers ; statistical machines. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER CO. June 12, 1936, No. 16410. Convention date, June 12, 1935. [Class 106 (i)] Data are entered, into a cash register or similar accounting machine under the control of a perforated record element and, in the same machine operation, additional data are perforated in the record element under the control of permanently preset or manually adjusted setting means. The invention is described as applied to a cash registering machine of the kind forming the subjectmatter of Specifications 285,500, [Class 106 (i)], 370,496, 371,412, 406,654, and 449,467. After making a sale, the clerk detaches the lower perforated portion or ticket from a tag, Fig. 34, secured to the article sold, places the ticket in a carriage 314, Fig. 1, and presses the carriage into the machine. He then depresses the clerk's key 42 allotted to him and one of a number of transaction keys 39 ... 41, and releases the machine by depression of the motor bar 44. During the ensuing operation, the price of the article is read from the ticket, printed and indicated by the mechanisms common to this type of machine, and is entered into a totalizer selected by the depressed clerk's key. Later in the operation, perforations are punched in the ticket under the control of the depressed keys to record the clerk's number and kind of transaction, and under the control of permanently preset means to record the number of the machine. Finally, the ticket is removed by rollers laterally from the carriage and stored in a receptacle 315. Means are provided to prevent the complete insertion of the carriage unless the ticket is correctly disposed therein and to prevent release of the machine unless the carriage is in its innermost position. Totals and subtotals are taken in usual manner under the control of the usual lever 43, adjustment of which away from " Add " position enables the machine to be released irrespectively of the position of the carriage. The perforated ticket. Attached to each article to be sold is a tag, Fig. 34, marked on its upper part with the price and other data relating to the article. The lower portion 306 of the tag is readily detachable from the upper part and forms a ticket in which the data marked on the upper part is recorded by perforations in accordance with the fourpoint code shown in Fig. 36. When the ticket has been detached and inserted in the machine, the price perforations in the right-hand column are read and registered and, immediately thereafter, additional code perforations relating to the clerk's, transaction and machine numbers are punched in the squares A, B, C. The lower right-hand corner of the ticket is bevelled to ensure its correct orientation in the carriage. The ticket carriage. The ticket 306 is placed flat on a slidable carriage 314, Figs. 1 and 26, with its bevelled corner innermost and to the left. The carriage is now pushed into the machine against the action of a spring and, upon reaching its extreme position, is held by a spring latch 338, Fig. 24, that rocks counterclockwise into -engagement with a shoulder 336 on the carriage. The rocking of the latch serves to disable a detent acting on the usual machine release bar, such detent being provided additionally to the usual detents holding the bar. Conversely, restoration of the detent at the end of the machine operation, under the control of the transaction-key release-means, disables the latch and permits the carriage to move out of the machine. If the ticket is incorrectly placed on the carriage, full insertion of the carriage, to permit machine release, is prevented by a lever 324, Fig. 26, that is rocked clockwise by a square corner of the ticket and intercepts a shoulder 328 on the carriage. Reading means. Although the machine has no amount keys, it is provided with the usual differential devices. These are controlled by reading means for the price column of the inserted ticket and set the printing and indicating mechanisms in usual manner. The perforations for each denomination of the price are sensed by a set of two pairs of fingers, of which one pair 364, 365 are shown in Fig. 23. The fingers of each pair are in the same vertical plane and are carried by individual levers 363 that are freely pivoted on a shaft 367 and provided at their left-hand ends with hooks 368, 369 also situated in a common vertical plane. Upon the release of the machine, a bail 385 frees the levers to the action of springs 384, and the fingers rise to sense the ticket, the hooks associated with those fingers that encounter perforations being thus lowered relatively to the remaining hooks. Notched decoding bars 372 pivoted to racks 374 are then raised to contact the hooks, which are held in adjusted position by an aligning bail 395. Rigid with each decoding bar is a second notched bar 373, Fig. 20, each pair of bars co-operating with a set of four hooks. The bars are raised to contact the hooks by rollers 417 carried by levers 419 when the latter are released by a cam-actuated bail 423 to the action of springs 422. The racks 374 are now moved to the left by the driving springs of the associated differential members until arrested by the engagement of the hooks with the notched bars. This takes place when a combination of four notched and unnotched parts of the bars registers with a similar combination of lowered and unlowered hooks. The differentials are thus set in accordance with the price perforation and the price is indicated, printed, and entered in the selected totalizer, in usual manner. If a set of fingers senses a zero perforation, the associated rack is arrested by the selected hook and, in addition, by the hooked end of the associated lever 419 which intercepts a shoulder 439 on the rack. In the event of the machine's being operated in the absence of a ticket, all the fingers will rise, thus allowing a bail 442, straddling the levers 363, to fall into the path of projections 443 on the decoding bars and hold the differentials in zero position. Perforating means. Perforations corresponding to the clerk's number, the kind of transaction and the machine number are punched in the ticket 306 towards the end of the machine operation by three sets of four punches 469, Fig. 32. The punches are selected by code bars 462 pivoted to racks 454, of which two are set by the differentials for the clerks' and transaction key banks while the third is fixed. After the code bars have been aligned in set position by a bail 483, they are lowered to actuate selected punches by means of a roller 464 on a cam-operated bell-crank 466. A bail 472 suspended from the bell-crank co-operates with shoulders on the punches to retract them from the perforations as the code bars rise.