Patent ID: 7251546

Claim:
A machine for dispensing articles, the machine comprising: a housing; a storage area disposed within the housing for storing articles to be dispensed, wherein said stored articles are located at predetermined positions within the storage area so that a cross-section view of the storage area defines a predetermined one of a plurality of possible article storing plan-o-grams for said stored articles; an article retrieval device associated with the housing and able to retrieve articles from the storage area, for moving articles to be dispensed from the storage area toward a dispensing area; and user interface and control apparatus for allowing a user of the dispensing apparatus to initiate an article dispensing operation, and for generating control signals which cause controlled movement of the article retrieval device so that an article selected by the user is retrieved from a predetermined location in the article storage area and moved toward the dispensing area, wherein said user interface and control apparatus includes: a memory for storing therein a plurality of sets of control information, each one set of said plurality of sets of control information being required for generating the proper control signals for the article retrieval device when the storage area has disposed therein a corresponding one of said plurality of possible article storing plan-o-grams for said stored articles; and a selection device coupled to said control apparatus, for allowing selection of a given one of said sets of control information stored in the memory, so that when a desired article is selected by a user, it is properly extracted from the predetermined location in the article storage area and moved toward the dispensing area.