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From: Gary Clark II <gclarkii@phoenix.net>
Message-Id: <199502011753.LAA13383@ phoenix.net>
Subject: Re: POS (was Re: sup: Ok, I'm gonna do it.)
To: hsu@freefall.cdrom.com (Jeffrey Hsu)
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 11:53:10 -0500 (CST)
Cc: jkh@freefall.cdrom.com, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
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