Abstract: A point of sale cash register having multiple drawers. The drawers are opened on a selected basis to prevent employee theft. One procedure would be for the drawers to open randomly so that the employee could not in advance know which drawer was opening. A second procedure would be a random lockout wherein any or all drawers of the cash register are locked until a management employee comes to conduct an audit of cash register receipts. The management employee obtains access to the cash register drawers by means of a key or code word known only to the management employee.

Abstract: A computerized investment plan accounting system manages data for investment plans with multiple participants and multiple investment funds. When a transaction is entered, one side of the transaction (either units or dollars) may be flagged as pended. When the unit value for the fund is determined and stored, the pended side is calculated, stored, dated, and flagged as fixed. Investment fund balances are accumulated by posting the transactions to investment fund accounts. Individual participant fund balances are determined by accumulating transaction data in a multi-dimensional matrix. The participant fund balances are combined for all participants, and the combined totals are compared to the investment fund balances.

Abstract: A system for rapid processing of the data records of many moving and nonmoving objects on a playfield only part of which is displayed and for determining collisions between objects, machine searching a linked list of the records organized by approximate position on the playfield implements the search function, is provided to continue searching for the next object which is to be visible while the graphic data from a previously found object is being loaded into a line buffer. Slips pointing to the first objects on the list for the current scan line speed up the search process. The collision detect process is speeded up by only checking the nearest neighbors on the playfield in the path of movement and by organizing all the moving and nonmoving objects on the playfield in a two dimensional array mapped to the approximate position of display of the object on the playfield.

Abstract: A microprocessor parking meter includes: a casing; a plurality of control keys formed on the casing for selecting several parking areas, for starting a timing operation or for stopping the timing operation; a display of multiple digits formed on the casing for showing a selected parking area, a number of parking units and a real clock time, a microprocessor operatively scanning the display and the control keys for showing or sequentially degrading the number of parking units each unit corresponding to a time interval with respect to a selected parking areas among the plural different parking areas during a lapse of parking time, forming a compact unit held in a car ready for outside inspection or for convenient parking service by a owner of the meter.