Abstract: A vending apparatus has a plurality of cash-less vending machines installed in guest rooms and meeting rooms and at any other suitable places in hotels and supermarkets, and any customers who want to use the vending machines may have their own memory holders from a front or cashier. Upon insertion of the memory holder into the vending machine and depression of a merchandise selection button or the like, a selected merchandise is discharged from the vending machine while sales information such as a code and price of the sold merchandise is stored in memory element in the holder, and when the memory holder is returned and inserted into an accounting machine, the sales information is read out from the memory holder to prepare a bill. The vending machines and the accounting machine are enabled in response to the output from a sensor which detects the insertion of the memory holder.

Abstract: A vending system is disclosed which is adapted to be installed in a hotel or the like for permitting the guests to buy articles in a refrigerator or vending machine in a guest room without use of coins. When a guest inserts his memory holder into a vending machine and selects an article, an article code or codes representative of the article or articles he bought are transferred from a transmitter in the vending machine into the memory holder, and an accounting machine reads out the data in the memory holder to prepare a bill. Optical, magnetic or high frequency data transmission is used between the vending machine and the memory holder and between the memory holder and the accounting machine so that no data transmission line is required.