JPH037994B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Some POS systems are equipped with a control unit such as a central PLU controller, and are capable of not only inquiring prices and product names but also storing transaction details at the POS terminal in a storage medium. This is what I did. When filing such transaction details, a near-end mark is attached to a floppy disk or the like used as a storage medium, and a warning sound is generated by detecting this mark. However, when looking at the storage medium mentioned above, transaction details are sent as data from all POS terminals, so
If the number of POS terminals is small, there is some margin between detecting the near end and actually overflowing, but if the number of POS terminals is large, there will be a large amount of data sent from the POS terminals when the near end is reached. There is a risk that the storage medium will overflow. In preparation for such a situation, the present invention enables the near-end capacity value of the storage medium to be variably set according to the number of POS terminals.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a data collection system, and particularly to a data collection system in which the near-end capacity value of a storage medium for recording data from each terminal is made variable.

[Conventional technology]

In mass retail stores such as department stores and supermarkets, product numbers, product names, unit prices, etc. of products handled are centrally managed at a central location, and each sales floor is equipped with a terminal device (hereinafter referred to as
Place a POS terminal (called a POS terminal) and have the cash register operated.
There are POS systems that employ the so-called central PLU (Price Look Up) method, and the basic configuration of such a method is shown in Figure 5. The central PLU type POS system shown here includes a PLU controller 1 (hereinafter simply referred to as the controller) connected to a host device 5 (indicated by SLP in the figure) that aggregates sales data and manages POS terminals. It is assembled by a plurality of POS terminals (1, 2, . . . , N) 4 connected to a controller 1. Controller 1 has unit price,
Floppy disk 2 that stores data such as product names
The controller 1 and the POS terminal 4 are connected by a line 3 through which various signals and data are transmitted. 5 is connected by a line 6. In addition, the controller 1 has a PLU function, that is, a function that accepts inquiries about product prices from POS terminals (including inquiries about product names, which is an HLU function), and also collects details of transactions conducted at each POS terminal 4 as data. This data is then recorded on the floppy disk 2, which is an external storage medium, while the same data is transferred to the host device 5 and aggregated. As a data collection method for such a POS system,
Conventionally, the floppy disk 2 has a storage area as shown schematically in FIG.
The floppy disk 2 is divided into a preliminary intake section 2b and a near end display section 2c, which indicates that the floppy disk 2 will soon overflow. When the data collection to the floppy disk 2 progresses and reaches the near end, the data that has been coming up from the POS terminal 4 at the time of reaching the near end is simply taken into the preliminary acquisition section 2b having a predetermined near end capacity. After that, it waits for the operator to replace it with a new floppy disk.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, in the data collection method of such a conventional POS system, the near-end display section 2c of the floppy disk 2 is fixedly determined in consideration of the scale of the normal POS system, and the storage area of the preliminary acquisition section 2b is fixed. Since the near-end capacity, which is the quantity, is fixed, if the quantity of POS terminals 4 is large or the sales floor is crowded, transaction data from a large number of POS terminals 4 will be flooded even when the near-end is reached. If this is expected to occur, there is a fear that the floppy disk 2 may overflow. On the other hand, if the number of POS terminals was small, an unnecessarily large near-end capacity would be set, resulting in a problem that the floppy disk 2 could not be used effectively.

The present invention has been made in view of these conventional problems, and its purpose is to provide a data collection method that can flexibly collect transaction data depending on the scale of the POS system.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is characterized in that the near-end capacity value of a storage medium for collecting transaction details as data in a POS system can be variably set according to the number of connected terminals. .

[Effect]

During normal data collection, transaction details sent from each POS terminal are sequentially recorded and stored in a data collection storage medium, ie, a floppy disk, by the controller. When the number of POS terminals increases, near-end capacity setting processing for floppy disks is executed by operating the host device during initial processing such as when power is turned on. When collecting data after setting the near-end capacity, the near-end capacity is checked and the data storage amount or remaining capacity is updated each time a detailed message is stored on the floppy disk.

〔Example〕

1 to 4 are diagrams showing one embodiment of the present invention, and among these, FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of one embodiment of a PLU controller used in this embodiment. This controller 11 is the main
The computer includes a CPU 12 and three sub-CPUs connected to the main CPU 12 via interfaces 16, 17, and 18, respectively, and a bus 19. The sub
The CPU includes an upper line control unit 13 that controls the line between the controller 11 and the higher-level device 5, and a lower line control unit 14 that controls the line between the controller 11 and the POS terminal 4 that is the lower-level device.
An arithmetic processing unit 15 that performs data collection processing etc. based on the transaction statement message sent from the POS terminal 4
It is. The controller 11 also includes a main memory 20 in which processing programs for the controller 11 and various data necessary for program execution are stored, and a floppy disk drive section 22 in which a floppy disk 21, which is an external storage medium, is set. Further, a power lamp 24 and an error lamp 25 are connected via an input/output port 23. Main memory 2
0 is provided with an area for loading various files stored in the floppy disk 21, such as a total file, a PLU master file, a temporary file, a special sale file, and a vandal file, as needed. Others, CPU12, 13, 14,
A storage area for data exchanged between 15 units and a work area for the main CPU are allocated. Also sub CPU
The upper line control unit 13 and the lower line control unit 1 are
4. Each interface connecting each of the arithmetic processing units 15 to the bus 19 is a DMA (dynamic
(memory access) control unit.

The controller 11 having such a configuration is
The product name and unit price corresponding to the product code sent from the POS terminal 4 are read from the above PLU related file and sent to the above POS terminal (PLU function),
Data sent from a POS terminal after one transaction is completed,
That is, the registered data (detailed message) registered for that transaction is received and the total is added to the total file (total function). Furthermore, the controller 11 also has a relay function of directly transferring the statement message received from the POS terminal 4 to the host device 5 and logging the statement message in an external memory.

Among the various functions described above, for data collection, a floppy disk 21, which is an external storage medium, is used with variable near-end capacity as shown in FIG. That is, floppy disc 21
near end display section 2 by pointer operation etc.
1c is variably set between points A and B, and the data acquisition section 21a and preliminary acquisition section 21b are allocated based on the set position. This near-end capacity setting is performed according to the flowchart shown in FIG. This setting flow is performed in the initial processing (when the power is turned on) in the floppy processor, which will be described later. First, when the power is turned on, in step STI, the μCPU calculates the number of connected POS units based on the number of responses by polling control. Next, the near-end capacitance value is calculated as V=A×n. Here, V: Appropriate near-end capacity value for the POS system A: Near-end capacity value per POS terminal n: Number of POS terminals. In addition, the number of POS terminals is set in advance,
Or if it is set in the main memory 20 etc.
The value n in this step is obtained by reading from those storage media.

Based on this calculation result, the controller 11 connects itself in step ST2.
A near-end capacity value corresponding to the number of POS terminals is written in the capacity value area of the floppy disk 21, the near-end display section 21c is set at a predetermined position between points A and B, and the near-end capacity value setting process is completed.

Next, the controller 11 is the main controller while the POS system is being used for product buying and selling processing.
The operation of the CPU 12 will be explained with reference to the functional blocks in FIG. The main CPU 12 includes a module analysis section 31, a module branching section 32, a real aggregation processing section 33, and a floppy processing section 34. Note that each of these processing units is
It can also be realized by software using a program executed by the CPU 12. First, each
Each transaction statement message sent from the POS terminal 4 is
The data is taken into the module analysis section 31 via the queue 35. And the message type (transaction details, PLU inquiry,
(type of file maintenance, etc.) is analyzed.
When the message is analyzed in the module analysis section 31, each message is supplied to the module branching section 32 in a predetermined order via the queue 36. This module branching section 32 selects various modules (processing sections) depending on the message type. Now, assuming that the message type is a transaction statement message, the real aggregation processing unit 33 is activated. This real aggregation processing section 33 determines whether the main processing section is in an aggregation mode, a relay mode, or a collection mode. These modes are set by the higher-level device 5 or the POS terminal which is the lower-level device at the start of business. If the mode is aggregation mode, step ST1 in the operation flow in the real aggregation processing section 33
0 and ST11, each item is counted separately, and the top 20 items are counted separately. If it is the relay mode, in step ST12, the received transaction statement message is sent to the host device 12, and the data is stored in the floppy disk 21 via the floppy processing section 34. Further, if the above mode is the collection mode, the received transaction statement message is collected in step ST13, and after the return address is set, the data is stored in the floppy disk 21 via the floppy processing section 34. During this data collection, the near-end capacity is called from the capacity value area of the floppy disk 21 to the main CPU 12. Each time the transaction statement message, which is the data to be collected, is stored on the floppy disk, the data storage amount or remaining capacity is updated and compared with the near-end capacity value.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the near-end capacity of the storage medium for data collection of a POS system is set to an amount suitable for the POS system, so that the floppy disk does not easily overflow, and the POS system always can be operated normally.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a PLU controller used in a POS system according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the setting state of the near-end capacity of a floppy disk set in the controller, and FIG. is a flowchart showing the near-end capacity setting operation of the floppy disk in Figure 2, Figure 4 is a functional block diagram of the main CPU to realize various processing operations of the controller,
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a central PLU type POS system, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a setting state of near-end capacity of a data collection storage medium in a conventional POS system. 1, 11...PLU controller, 2, 21...
...Floppy disk (storage medium), 3, 6...Line, 4...POS terminal, 5...Host device, 12...
...Main CPU, 13...Upper line control section, 14
...Lower line control unit, 15...Arithmetic processing unit, 20
...Main memory.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In a system that collects input transaction detail data of terminals and records the transaction detail data in a storage medium of a control section, means for determining the number of terminals connected to the control section;
A data collection characterized by comprising means for setting the near-end capacity value of the storage medium according to the number of connected terminals, and means for comparing the near-end capacity value and recordable capacity each time data is collected. system.