Restaurant or retail vending facility

Claim 1

In a vending system including a portable data terminal adapted to interact with a data processor for implementing an order transaction, the combination comprising: a plurality of ordering stations, each having respective bidirectional paging transceiver apparatus of a selected energy type adapted to communicate with like paging transceiver apparatus located in at least one portable hand held ordering terminal; at least one portable hand held ordering terminal including, like transceiver apparatus of said selected energy type adapted to provide an indication of a page to an operator carrying said ordering terminal and to provide operator communications with said ordering stations and any other location having like transceiver apparatus of said selected energy type, a first digital memory, means for entering digital data corresponding to an order transaction into said first memory for temporary storage, means providing a visual instructional sequence to the operator for properly entering the order data into said first memory and providing error indicator for improper operator entry, a second digital memory and being of a down loaded reprogrammable type having stored data therein corresponding to a programmed library of product codes of orderable items and being operable to output an alpha-numeric code sequence of an ordered item in response to an order entry by said operator, means providing a print out of each ordered item in alpha-numeric form and means coupled to said first memory for transferring said data in temporary storage to a selectively addressed wireless communications link under program control; said communications link comprising a pollable bidirectional wireless communications link of a selected type including a controlled polling station, a plurality of pollable input stations coupled to said polling station, said polling station being operable to repetitively interrogate said plurality of input stations and lock onto an input station in communication with said hand held ordering terminal to accept data therefrom and couple said data to means providing a visual representation of an order entry and to a data processor; means coupled to said communications link and being responsive to the data from said temporary storage provided by said first memory to provide a visual representation of the order entry in said terminal, said visual representation means being located at an order filling location separate from said ordering station; a data processor coupled to said communications link and being responsive to data translated thereto from said first memory of said hand held ordering terminal to maintain a running account of the transaction and provide billing information therefrom; and means coupled to said data processor for providing a printed record including a bill at the end of the transaction.