Abstract: A card reader for reading a Hollerith coded card where the holes in the card are scanned by a single array of photo detectors as the card is withdrawn from a slot, and where an edge detector determines when the card is fully inserted into the slot so as to activate a scanner and signal a memory unit to accept data from the scanner, and where an error detector detects any improper scanning of the card by counting the number of rows scanned and prevents processing of incorrectly generated data.

Abstract: A selective imprinting machine of the type used for addressing mailed material, utilizing embossed card-sized media of the "credit-card" type having a matrix of perforations sensed for comparison against the master. The master is another perforated card with the perforations on both cards photoelectrically sensed. In one embodiment the cards move along a linear path, and in another they are carried on a rotating drum which also bears the master card. The media are placed on the drum by a rocker arm actuated by a cam driven by the drum, scanned simultaneously with the master for comparison and ejected tangentially from the drum to a receiver. A print signal is produced until inhibited by mismatch between the master and the individual embossed media. The elected media are imprinted against a receiving medium such as an envelope by a print roller, at the periphery of the drum, urged toward the periphery by a cam driven by the drum.

Abstract: A piece of scrip is engraved or printed with groups of patterns which can be sensed by a validator for scrip and one of those groups of patterns will define a code which will permit that piece of scrip to be accepted only by a scrip validator or by scrip validators which have that same code stored therein. Two additional groups of patterns define codes which can cause that scrip validator or those scrip validators to automatically respond to the codes stored therein to actuate price-determining relays within a vending machine. Each pattern is formed by a number of spaced parallel lines, and the various patterns on a piece of scrip can be given different identities merely by changing the spacing between the trailing edges of those spaced parallel lines. The patterns in each group of patterns will be sensed in a prescribed sequence, and the sequentially sensed patterns in any of those groups of patterns can be given various identities.