Product sales data processing system for on-line connection to host CPU

Claim 1

A product sales data processing system, comprising: a plurality of point of sales (POS) terminals including a master POS terminal and a number of slaves POS terminals for registering sales data of products by transferring said sales data to an external host computer for registration; a plurality of slave credit authorization terminals (CATs), each including first card reading means for reading a credit card number from a credit card set at a reading position, a first working memory area, first data input means for inputting sales data of products and a personal identification number into said first working memory area, a slave POS interface arranged for connection to a respective one of said slave POS terminals, a slave CAT interface, and first data transfer control means for controlling data transfer to said slave POS and said slave CAT interfaces; and a master credit authorization terminal including second card reading means for reading the credit card number from the credit card set at a reading position, a second working memory area, second data input means for inputting sales data of products and a personal identification number, a master POS interface arranged for connection to said master POS terminal, a master CAT interface arranged for connection to the CAT interfaces of said plurality of slave credit authorization terminals, inline circuit means for connecting said master CAT interface to each of said slave CAT interfaces, a host interface arranged for connection to said external host computer, online circuit means for connecting said host interface to said host computer, and second data transfer control means for controlling data transfer to said master POS, master CAT and host interfaces, wherein each of said first data transfer control means of said plurality of slave credit authorization terminals produces authorization data on the basis of the sales data from either said respective slave POS terminal or said first data input means, the card data from said first card reading means and the personal identification number from said first data input means, and then supplies said authorization data to said master credit authorization terminal, the second data transfer control means of said master credit authorization terminal sequentially transferring the authorization data from said plurality of slave credit authorization terminals to the external host computer through said host interface.