The present invention relates to electronic communication systems employing existing telephone lines; and more particularly, it relates to a system for quickly and conveniently transmitting data representative of an order desired to be placed.
The present system is designed to be used in situations where a limited number of known purchasers use the telephone to place orders with a central location, especially when orders are placed frequently. An example might be a number of hospitals ordering materials from a supplier. This situation is distinguished from that of a retail catalog sales organization taking orders from thousands of customers who may or may not be repeat customers, but for the most part, do not re-order the same items frequently, even if they are repeat customers.
One way in which the order taking from frequent repeat customers is accomplished currently is simply that the orders are placed by a person orally over the telephone to a remote, central location. If the operation is large enough, the supplier may lease WATS lines from a number of larger cities to reduce the cost of telephone order placement. Nevertheless, because of the need to manually record the order at the central location, and the need to place the order orally by the purchaser or "subscriber", considerable expense is incurred just in the telephone usage.
There are existing systems which transmit data from remote locations or subscribers to a central location through existing telephone communication channels and using tone signals. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,655 entitled "Credit Authorization System Terminal" in which subscribers such as restaurants or stores transmit data to a central processor which determines whether credit is to be authorized to a customer. In this system, a telephone connection is established automatically, and once the customer's identification data is transmitted, the terminal operator uses a keyboard to enter the dollar amount of a transaction, and the computer, upon receipt of all of the data, checks stored data and transmits one of four possible display codes for the user including (1) READY, that is, credit is accepted; (2) INCOMPLETE, that is, re-execute the information; (3) CALL, indicating the terminal operator to call the remote processor for explanation, or (4) DO NOT SELL, indicating the customer's credit is not acceptable. This system does not offer the flexibility and convenience of assembling an order from an existing set of cards in an order deck, and transmitting the order to the central location with acceptance or rejection signals returned as the information on each card is verified, the "accept" tone being used to actuate the card reader to read the next card. The credit card system is designed to read a single card only and to transmit signals back to the subscriber representative of a limited number of options which are displayed.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,937,889, a data transmitter is capacitor-coupled to a bridge tap at a subscriber's handset so that it is direct-wired to the remote terminal telephone line. Data from transducers or keyboards is transmitted at frequencies outside the voice band to the telephone central office or to a central processor.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,062, data terminals are coupled via telephone lines to a central computer which controls the connection of an acoustic coupler to a keyboard, a printer and the computer. U.S. Pat. No. 3,932,709 discloses a business telephone for the transmission and receipt of voice messages and digital data which includes a computation mode wherein the data terminal is electronically interfaced with the remote computer. U.S. Pat. No. 3,505,474 discloses a portable computer terminal with an acoustic coupler which sends and receives digital data in teletypewriter code to and from a central computer. Data is transmitted by means of a keyboard, and it is displayed through a printer at the remote terminal.