The goal is to avoid the customer having to count out the appropriate number of cents, and to minimize the amount of coins carried in his or her pocket.
The total price comes up to $X.74. The customer dumps all his or her loose change into a machine which counts out 74 cents using as many coins as possible by weight (perhaps several full dollars more), or if it cannot make it exactly, picks a value which results in the least change (by weight) after the customer pays sufficient number of full dollars in bills. The remaining originally deposited loose change, plus whatever additional change is due, is returned to the customer. (Possibly "repackaging" many coins into larger denomination coins.)
A bit of a computational puzzle to figure out what coins to consume and dispense.
This is a much fancier version of the automatic change dispenser seen (rarely) at checkout counters (Walgreens).
No comments :
Post a Comment