Accounting system for telephonic exchanges

Claim 1

A toll ticketing and accounting system for an automatic telephone exchange which comprises a plurality of incoming circuits, each capable of producing signals representative of characteristic conditions of calls, from a circuit,registers, means responsive to the initation of a call from an incoming circuit for connecting a register to the incoming circuit for registering the initial information items regarding the call, charge indicators, means for connecting a register to a charge indicator for receiving therefrom information as to the rate of charge to be applied to the call, means comprising a transfer device for transferring the initial information items and the rate of charge from said register to a processing machine associated with the incoming circuit, means comprising at least one programmed data processing machine associated with said incoming circuits to receive said information items, channels in said machine individually associated with each incoming circuit for recording in each channel information from its associated circuit and means for cyclically scanning said incoming circuits to continuously detect signals therefrom for recording in said channels, wherein each incoming circuit is associated with only one processing machine, and said transfer device comprises connecting means whereby connection to only one register can be made at any given time, means for storing the initial information items of a call in a register which is connected to a calling incoming circuit, which has received from the charge indicator circuit the rate of charge to be applied to the call and which has seized the transfer device, means comprising a preselection link for transmitting an accounting-wanted signal to that incoming circuit through the information data-processing machine which reaches that incoming circuit in the course of its scanning cycle, and means in the processing machine operated responsive to said signal for entering the initial information and the rate of charge, as formed in said register and transmitted by the transfer device, said entry being made in a store cell associated with said incoming circuit, and means in the register for stopping said signal and releasing the transfer device responsive to the transfer of the said information being achieved.