Check-actuated control mechanisms – With means responsive to malfunction
Patent
1993-11-15
1995-11-07
Bartuska, F. J.
Check-actuated control mechanisms
With means responsive to malfunction
364479, G06F 15177
Patent
active
054640873
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to transaction systems, sometimes known as payment systems. It is particularly concerned with means for interconnecting individual components of such systems.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the past, it has been known to provide a bus arrangement for interconnecting different components of a transaction system. For example, a vending machine may include a control circuit for controlling the dispensing of products, and a separate coin mechanism for receiving and validating inserted coins. The circuits would be interconnected by the bus so as to permit exchange of data from the coin mechanism to the control board, in order for the control board to be able to determine when sufficient coins have been received for the purchase of an article, so that the article can then be dispensed in response to the appropriate operation of one or more push-buttons of the machine. In some systems, the vending machine control circuit would initiate the information exchange by requesting the appropriate information from the coin mechanism. In other known arrangements, the coin mechanism would initiate the data transfer, and thus trigger the appropriate response from the vending machine control circuit.
Some prior art bus arrangements have been accepted as standard, and have thus provided considerable advantages in permitting independent manufacturers to produce items of equipment which can be readily connected to products of other manufacturers. However, the known bus arrangements also have a number of disadvantages. It would therefore be desirable to provide an improved bus arrangement which is more versatile and faster than known arrangements.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided a transaction system including two or more system components interconnected by a bus, each of the components being operable to initiate communication directly with another of the components. By permitting each component to initiate communication, it is possible to avoid delays which might otherwise occur in a master/slave bus system such as the prior art systems, whereby information to be obtained from a slave component cannot be transmitted until that slave is polled by the master. Furthermore, the present invention allows direct information exchange between any two components, which was not possible in prior art arrangements unless one of the components constituted the master component. This facilitates a number of operations which would have been much more difficult to carry out in prior art systems, and which are exemplified below. Another advantage of the present invention is that it allows greater flexibility, in as much as no individual component of the system needs to have predefined functions. This differs for example from those prior art systems in which the vending machine control circuit acted as the master component, and therefore this control circuit always needed to have the additional function of controlling communications.
A still further advantage of the present invention relates to the use of shared resources, for example in a system in which two or more vending machines have a common coin mechanism. In the prior art, this was very difficult to arrange if the sharing of resources resulted in more than one master component in the system, because this would result in conflicts on the bus. This would be the case in the above example using bus arrangements of the type wherein the vending machine control circuit has control of communications and thus constitutes the master. These problems are avoided by use of the present invention, whereas with the prior art systems avoiding the problems involved considerable effort and dedicated circuits, and also exacerbated the speed problems of the bus.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention there is provided a transaction system including two or more circuit components interconnected by a bus, each circuit component having a processor and at least one peripheral device, su
REFERENCES:
patent: 4369442 (1983-01-01), Werth et al.
patent: 4577273 (1986-03-01), Hopper et al.
patent: 4704717 (1987-11-01), King, Jr.
patent: 4740910 (1988-04-01), Sakata et al.
Bounds David J.
Campbell Bernard J.
Johnson Anthony D.
Weston John A.
Bartuska F. J.
Mars Incorporated
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