International Business Machines Corporation

Mark Charles Agnew

Wayne L Aderman

James M Rigotti

John R Reidenbach

Willard Leon Gudgel

Frank Wilkey, Jr

James Jacob Best

Point-of-sale terminal

A processing machine, particularly a reader, for punched document cards including a hopper for a deck of the document cards, pick rolls disposed beneath the hopper in such position as to feed the document cards transversely thereof from the bottom of the hopper, a vertically movable hopper bed for moving the deck onto and off of the pick rolls to make them effective or ineffective, a deck lifter positioned beneath the card deck in the hopper for supporting one side of the card deck after the bottommost card has been moved transversely thereof partially out from underneath the other cards in the deck, driving rolls for moving the bottommost card longitudinally after it has been partially so moved from underneath the rest of the deck and means operative for reading punched holes in the document card on continued longitudinal movement of the card.

Reading machine for punched document cards

A hopper mechanism comprising a hopper front panel and a back shoe horizontally sideable with respect to a hopper base together forming a hopper into which a horizontal deck of document cards may be placed; a belt extending around a pick roll moveable through the front panel for picking an end card in the hopper and driving it downwardly through a throat gap disposed in the hopper base; a relatively large diameter roll supporting the belt and forming a nip with the belt into which the picked document card moves from the throat gap for reversing the direction of movement of the card from vertical to horizontal; a registration arm swingable by the card as it passes out from engagement with the large diameter roll and belt for sensing the position of the card; and a reversely rotating roll coacting with a roller carried by the registration arm for moving the card backwardly, after the card has cleared the registration arm, into contact with a card abutting registration edge of the arm for providing a registered position for the card.

Hopper mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

Mark Charles Agnew