Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 14:32:40 +0800 (HKT) From: John Beukema <jbeukema@HK.Super.NET> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Jeffrey Hsu <hsu@freefall.cdrom.com>, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com Subject: Re: POS (was Re: sup: Ok, I'm gonna do it.) Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950203141228.23660A-100000@is1.hk.super.net> In-Reply-To: <17408.791632879@time.cdrom.com>
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On Wed, 1 Feb 1995, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > I've long felt that 2 or 3 dedicated hackers could easily put a > warehousing or POS network together with dedicated entry terminals > (those vt100's really take a beating and keep going! :-) hooked to a > FreeBSD server box. The console of the box itself could run a little > application monitor in snazzy syscons colors on some cheapo 14" > monitor and VGA card. When the sysop wants to work on it, he or she > even has up to 12 virtual screens to work on - woo! That's a lot > better than the console interface of any of the systems I used to put > together! :-) > > In situations where even that's impractical, they could use the serial > console stuff and a suitably chosen machine racked in a sealed, > dustproof (sort of) rack. No vga display or keyboard to cause > problems, just a rack and those little industrial terminals and their > twisted pair serial connections down on the shop floor. > > For databases, they could go Ingres or even spend some time beating on > postgres to make it something more of what they want. For a lot of > applications, however, even that's overkill and they could always just > use their own file format and B-trees or something. The DB package we > ship with isn't even that bad now, actually, and you could certainly > do something like a small sawmill's work-order database with it. > > Any way you slice it, if you're sure that your underlying OS is stable > then you can put the rest together with off-the-shelf PC components > (that you've tested extensively) and some custom code of your own. > > Get a reseller's certification for the low hardware pricing and then > walk into small businesses and undercut the turnkey bids. Not hard, > since most turnkey systems are EXPENSIVE. It would be an uphill road > to climb in competing with the quality of the turnkey software, but > even that shouldn't be too hard for 3 really BRIGHT folks with solid > motivation to build their own company in that business. It's even > kind of fun. You get to see how a lot of busineses work that you > never even really thought much about before! Ever wonder how they > make fish tanks? Or plastic cups? Or comic books? Or auto parts? > I could talk to you about all of these things from the production > automation side.. :-) > > Jordan > I now have a production Manufacturing Resource Planning and accounting suite running on FreeBSD 2.0-current using the Ctree database. (250,000 line of code) Nice color screens menus and all. It can be done. I am adding a mobile phone control and billing package. I certainly agree with you on the installation and documentation. There are many professional programmers out here who find the installation procedures incomprehensible, particularily the partitioning and disklabel parts. Some of the arguments remind me of the tobacco industry's old saw 'advertising is only to maintain brand loyality not to obtain new smokers' only the 'We are only looking for already experienced unix hackers' may be true. Good luck to you in your documentation program. Is there no way to reduce the gap between 386bsd, netbsd and even linux and widen the family? | John Beukema | Winthrop & Jeffro Ltd. | | 14/F Somerset House | Manufacturing Systems | | Taikoo Place, 979 King's Road | Tel (852) 2963 7352 | | Quarry Bay | Fax (852) 2963 7353 | | Hong Kong | jbeukema@HK.Super.NET |
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