Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 11:53:10 -0500 (CST) From: Gary Clark II <gclarkii@phoenix.net> To: hsu@freefall.cdrom.com (Jeffrey Hsu) Cc: jkh@freefall.cdrom.com, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com Subject: Re: POS (was Re: sup: Ok, I'm gonna do it.) Message-ID: <199502011753.LAA13383@ phoenix.net> In-Reply-To: <199502010931.BAA27914@freefall.cdrom.com> from "Jeffrey Hsu" at Feb 1, 95 01:31:15 am
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>
> I am ambitious. I want to see FreeBSD running at ice stations, ...
> And I want to see it in small and medium sized businesses doing
> Real Work(tm).
>
> Point of sales systems are a big part of SCO Unix sales and one of
> the most common business applications. These POS packages are
> usually custom-built vertical applications with the operating system
> bundled in. Does anyone want to put one together for FreeBSD? I
> figure the first thing we need is a barcode reader. We could use
> tk or tkperl for the front-end and use sql to pass data to some
> database, running on some other machine. Eventually, we'll want
> to have that running on FreeBSD too. (Sybase or Oracle employees
> take note: lobby your local VP. Better yet, do the port, then
> lobby your VP.) I figure we already have the networking requirements
> covered. There are other architectures, usually involving terminals,
> but we've got to start somewhere.
>
> Jeffrey
>
Hi,
I'm working on one of these along with everything else. My background is
in POS supermarket scanning and I've worked on systems like ``Real World''
so I've got a little knowledge about the subject.
Here are some of the points to watch out for:
1. What market are you going for?
One of the things I hate with a passion is those generic POS systems
that some companies try to foist off one everyone, and then charge an
arm and a leg to make it work for your business!!!
2. If you can, stay away from X (Unless your trying to get BIG customers..)
The reason I say this, is that I've found people who have no problems
paying 2,000 for a UPS system, bitch about having to pay $100.00 for
a monitor because ``We have all of these old ones left over from our
AT&T 6300s''. My present system is using CursePerl with DB extensions.
3. Every type of shop is different. Some of the lines I've seen that are
wide open are:
Gift Baskets (getting larger by the year)
GOOD video store software
Help desk software
Field service software
4. Stay away from supermarkets!!!!! Unless you have a direct connection
to one of the wholesalers or you know the owner of a BIG chain (20+ stores)
you'll never even get near the door.
5. Make sure you can use custom keyboards and scanners. Keyboard wedge
wands are nice, but anything more than a couple of items, it becomes
a pain and they want in-hole Spec-F's or something.
Sorry for deluge....
Gary
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