Abstract: A point of sale cash register which displays the price of an item as read by a bar code reader, also announces in simplified form a sound representing the price-range of the item such that an error so detected by the operator may be corrected by keyboard.

Abstract: An optical bar code reader includes a detection system for detecting a large article on which a standard type bar code label is disposed, and a small article on which a reduced type or truncated type bar code label is disposed. When the large article is detected, the optical bar code reader is automatically placed in a coarse scanning mode. When the small article is detected, the optical bar code reader is automatically placed in a fine scanning mode.

Abstract: An optical bar code reader includes a recognition system for recognizing a bar code data even when none of a plurality of scanning beams extend over the entire width of a bar code label. A plurality of incomplete data each of which represents a portion of the bar code label are combined with each other by a composition circuit to get an estimated complete bar code data. A determination system is provided for detecting whether the read out data obtained from any scanning beam corresponds to the entire bar code data. If an affirmative answer is obtained by the determination system, such read out data is directly applied to the associated processing system without activating the composition circuit.