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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