Processing means and terminal incorporating same, particularly for point of sale systems

摘要

A point of sale system as illustrated comprised of a terminal with input or output devices including a manual data input, a coded data input (e.g., bar code scanner and/or smart card reader), an on-line display, and a hard copy output. A primary processing module has ten expansion connectors such that the primary module can become any level of processor from powerful peripheral controller to a master processor with a large non-volatile database, such flexibility giving a point of sale terminal configuration advantages such as the following: (1) reduced cost in volume production because one common computing core is used to control different functions; (2) improved system redundancy since the primary processor unit can control localized peripherals at the bus level independently of a point of sale system network; and (3) improved system performance by (a) reducing the amount of peripheral network communication traffic, and (b) direct access to database information in small to medium size point of sale systems.