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Linux On a Used Cash Register
codewolf writes: "Looking at this site, it seems that if someone has enough time on their hands, they can get Linux to run on just about anything. Looks like this guy got Red Hat Linux running on an Ultimate Techonologies Corporation cash register. This is a great hack if you ask me."
Now we can get all our stuff free from the Linux counter :)
I'd hate to see a port of WinCE on a cash register, Imagine the small print on the back of the receipt.
"...you agree by paying this amount, to never divulge what you paid, or purchased, in any form, written, recorded, or electronicly transcribed in any way, to anybody. By having this receipt, you are violating the EUCEA (End User Cash Exchange Agreement) and must distroy this document, or face an audit of all digital processing and storage devices you own."
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
putting your money where your mouth is?
its not really surprising... in that linux supposedly compiles and runs on anything with a gcc compiler... while i'm not sure what processor its running... it appears to be intel based. With that in mind, booting it shouldn't be an issue. Setting up drives and getting the "led thing" as he puts it, to work may be an issue. But again if its intel, the drives and memory shouldn't be much of an issue. Definitly an interesting hack... but I'm not sure how impressive it is.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
PH34R MY SK1LLZ Wh3n I 0wN j00r b0X3n^H^H^H^H^Hcash register
Linux is a POS operating system...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
...until I see an old, beat up, chrome covered toaster from the 60's running linux...
...wait a sec, with those mini-itx boards it'd just about be possible...
Shit. I gotta lay off the caffine.
?
If you actually read the product info you can (for the 'logic unit') either use a:
* ASCII Terminal (Just connect to a *nix box)
* PC (Just install linux)
* NC (Can anyone say X)
Now, yes this IS cool, but it's equivilent to someone isntalling linux on a weird looking PC with some cool peripherals.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
The touch screen version. Always thought one would make a sweet X terminal, and if it can run win95 with our P.O.S. POS software, it can run something decent...
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
cept the unit is just a pentium based pc. :/
complete with harddrive and floppy.
Someone got Linux running on an embedded PC. If it was an obscure processor than sure, but its nothing more than a PC with a different plastic shell.
This is getting old.
*yawn*
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Oh, yes...
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should..."
Pretty interesting, none the less...
It looks to me like he says it's has got a pentium 233 in it. Not what I'd call a true OS install, more of a "getting the periferals to work" project.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
This is a stupid hack.
Unless he's thinking to start his own POS company, that is.
If you guys pay a subscription fee, can you mod the articles down that aren't good?
Just a thought.
This POS is still a computer so what is the big deal about this? The CueCat that is attached to it is a more impressive hack.
And I don't have the barcode scanner. So I hooked up my Cue:Cat instead.
It's good to see that someone has actually found a practical use for that damned thing.
Sigs are for losers
... to add up your shopping using dc?
Bob.
Kinda neat, but its a P233 pc. Really the only cool thing is the led display. I have an old IBM thermal printer that uses fax paper also, used it on my c64. Now put linux on a c64 (load "linux",8,1) and I will be impressed.
thinking that a 14 incher sucked...
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
POS machines are nothing more than PC computers with extra serial ports and different peripherals than "normal" PCs. And the POS software normally runs on DOS or Windows (*gasp*) ;-)
I really don't see what the big fuss is about, I mean, I've installed Linux on a few different POS machines myself, (I work for a company that makes POS software), and it's just like setting up Linux on a normal PC except for the peripherals.
If he could get Linux to control the drawer, then the cash would be real secure! :^)
testing out my trending skills
until I see that old toaster screensaver running on a toaster running linux...
I think that getting the display pole is pretty schweet, however the "embedded PC" at the cash register is not anything unexpected. I have a pair of SASI terminals that used to belong to a CoastalMart in town. They had a log 16bit ISA card that connected their peripherials to the box as well as a laptop's 1.2GB HDD downsized to 500MB.. (1024,16,63... familiar?) All I had to do was remove the propietary card that contained a bootROM and voila, a perfectly good P200,32mB RAM 4MB ATI video.. These had PCI in them as well.. One's my router and one is my webserver.. If you are a hardware freak, like I am, you are always on the constant lookout for embedded boxes of this sort.. Cash registers are higly sought out after for this reason... After all, why use a suitcase for a router when you have a shoebox available..
Good catch on the hardware!!
Partnership for an idiot free America!
with linux you think is a great hack.
I would be inpressed if linux had a attractive useful gui.
Well done, you posted the first anti-MS joke on this story, which had NOTHING TO DO with MS.
L'ânePOS is a linux/postgres Point of Sale system.
http://l-ane.sourceforge.net/nic.html
Based on a ThinkNIC, but can be used with any system
Jarett
A Beowulf cluster of these....
Just goes to show that Linux will run on any old POS.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Don't ask why... Some things just need doing.
:)
Definitely an excellent reason for this project. I can't think of a better one
I'm only surprised that the first use of the display pole was not for uptime/load....
I think that this is actually a little smaller...
Look at the bottom of the page.
There's a Linux shell for TI-89!
http://www.ticalc.org/pub/89/asm/shells/
Now for more wierdness...how about Linux on an oscilloscope? I know a guy who wrote "pong" for it using anolog circuits. Perhaps someone should take it further.
They could use a TV remote as the interface and an adapted LCD driver chip to do it cheap...
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I wouldn't be surprised.. after all, it IS just a computer inside a funky box... get enough of these and a load of gig-E nics and a gig-E switch, and a lot of cat-5 cables.. heh heh... BIG @$$ electric bill :)
man i gotta lay off the fscking coffee....
Partnership for an idiot free America!
Bad slashdotter! Someone spank him!
Move faster
if someone installed Quake on it. This will make the queue longer than ever...
Hey mam what you are typing all I need is to get some change...
This isn't just a great hack this should be one of the main uses for Linux! An os thats stable as a rock and once you set it up you'd rarely have to 'reboot' the cash register. Come on, perfect for 24 hour Dairy Marts everywhere :).
Whether it's on a cash register, an IBM mainframe, a wristwatch, a PDA, or powering NASA experiments, Linux is there. Your ISP uses Linux. So does your university. The US Air Force absolutely loves Linux and plans on investing heavily in Linux technology in the coming year. Linux is once again the darling of Wall Street, as more and more investment firms convert their computer infrastructure to Linux. Oh, and that great new movie with the awesome special effects--yup--you guessed it, Linux doing its job again.
There's no getting around it: We are living in the Linux millennium.
A nice GUI would be a good start.
My sister has a couple Subway sandwich shops that run on a copy of Windows 98 Embedded.
The Point of Sale Printer is nothing more than a parallel printer running on LPT1 with its driver set as a standard printer in Win98.
The disk drive on it is USB. The Printer on it is USB. The keyboard uses a standard keyboard interface.
Finally, the processor is a Pentium 3-700 with 128 meg of ram. The touchscreen is basically an LCD with a surface on it that maps to a mouse driver.
Why is this so hard in linux? USB might be painful at times, but the receipt printer is an easy hookup. The cash drawer opens whenever a signal is sent to the printer.
On many occasions I've printed something along the lines of "Welcome to Subway's Sex Shop" using the receipt printer. I don't see it as a plus which operating system I used to do it.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I used to work at Burger King, and we had our cash registers upgraded (this was about 9 years ago now). Inside the registers was basically a 386 processor, networked to the office (and then on to the head office) so the managers could keep track of how much we were selling.
It was quite amusing wathcing them reboot every so often...
This is fun and whatnot, but SFW? You have full access to the kernel and everything, so what an excellent way of spending your weekend. A company that I work for, is hacking Linux to work on a embedded medical device eg. /dev/cashdrawer?
Do you have to mount
J.
Apparently it still operates as a cash register while running Linux... except that it keeps insisting that anything run through it should be costing $0.00.
well, hmmm, sure looks like it's just a PC underneath, pentium processor, 30MB of memory, IDE hard disk, in which case it's not exactly anything special. now the Display on a stick on the other hand, that would be cool.
Software Freedom Day!.
this is nothing new, cash registers now run alot more than just adding up the total price. the registers at our local albertsons run some kind of windows, 2k embedded i think but i dont know for sure. next time i'm over there i'll find out the company that makes them.
I thought it was quite nice the Cash Register people told him how to get the display on a stick working. That's what I call support...
"Information wants to be paid"
Just like most Point Of Sale machines, they are just PC's with extra hardware. That is, if they bother. Many are just plain jane PC's, with things like the pole display and cash draw all driven by the printer, while the barcode scanner is plugged in through a keyboard wedge, so it emulates keyboard input.
If you're so interested in this, try developing a whole graphical (note: graphical as in has to look similar to their existing Windows setup) Point Of Sale system that will be using FrameBuffer, that will end up running on 486-dx33's, with 16 meg of RAM, and a whopping 420 meg of h/drive space. The place I work for is doing this for an Australia wide chain so that they can install it on their existing hardware. They are in a 'contract' with the old POS supplier to keep the hardware on the desks for a few more years. Poor bastards!
We have most of the extra hardware working (a whole 2 extra serial ports - and while it has a PCMCIA flash card reader, it isn't even worth the worry). The Point Of Sale program itself is written in Kylix (was originally a Delphi app on Windows), using SDL as an interface between the FrameBuffer and Kylix. Fun fun fun!!
and people actually sell linux PoS systems,
0 1- 1.htm
http://www.internetweek.com/ebizapps01/ebiz0716
http://www.viewtouch.com/poshome.html
Software Freedom Day!.
This is not news, most of these thing's I've used run NT, and if the hardware manage that Linux should be a breeze.
And remember folks, Gnu's *not* unix.
The article is not without a cool edge though :
She yoinked the RAM figuring I could use it. She's my main lady, and I can't extoll the virtues of marrying a geek grrrl enough. The new RAM works and Tracy r0x0rs.
Credit where credit is due too: quality photos, good description, up in HTML. Doing cool stuff is one thing, writing a reasonable report quite another. Kudos still goes to this dude.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
- does it run some form of GNUCash?
- does it GPL the ingredients of products bought?
- anyone consider a beo...nevermind
Seriously, though. Even if it's just really a funny looking computer, just the thought of making it work has to be pretty cool.I remember back in my younger years finding a cash register that ran OS/2... I got bored one day and started pressing key sequences for different operating systems that minimize full screen windows, and before I knew it I was looking at the OS/2 PM on a 6" black and white screen. My only thought at that point was, "this thing can run Quake!" :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
We got hold of some old cash register machines (IBM). It has DOS installed (used under some AS/400 system), but it wasn't good enough.
..Mozilla!
We tried Windows 98 and Windows NT, but all we came up with was a crashing machine. After struggeling with the MS-based OSes, we tried Linux. Everything matched together and we got everything to work!
We had some problems with X, but that solved after we added a GeForce2MX graphiccard to the machine, so now you could probably play Quake2 with quite good FPS =) Oh well, the Cyrix 233MHz processor is not that fast.
Next week they will be in production, and the main interface is...
Here are some early experiments with the machine (running bitchX).
So now that someone has shown the world how relatively easy it is to get a PC operating system running on a cash register, Microsoft has no excuse not to stand on the shoulders of this research and port Windows XP (which already runs some ATMs).
Then MS's propaganda/marketing machine will begin a campaign to warn retailers about "the dangers of using an operating system written by hackers." It would probably be something along the lines of "Linux could suck the cash right out of the drawer and send it over the internet to some hacker's Swiss bank account."
Extrapolated ridiculousness follows:
- Supermarkets buy subscriptions to Windows XP...
- You pay an extra 25 cents at the checkout...
- Every now and then the store manager tells you to put your stuff down and come back tomorrow because some hacker exploited the Win XP feature that was intended to allow the cash registers to talk to toaster ovens over the Internet.
- Microsoft patiently waits to see what else we can port Linux to...
Personally, I'd like to see someone get Linux running on my optical Intellimouse Explorer... Apache has been run on less hardware IIRCI dont know about anything else, but IBM cash registers are just PCs with a cash drawer. They run windows NT (and before that OS/2). So no big challenge there.
...is?
to see linux installed on an old mechanical cash register
Now that headline would be news.
How are we ever going to convince the suits that Linux is a serious OS, when people insist on pulling stupid stunts like this ? What IS the point ? I can hear the laughter in the boardrooms all over America.
How many of the suits do you think actually come to sites like this and find out about all the odd places that linux is installed. They have no idea.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
In opening his club, Jamie Zawinski messed around with a linux based POS system..
interesing article here:
Linux-Based Point-of-Sale Software
The cash register doesnt impress me much - but how about getting Linux running on a M$ X-Box? its after all also intel based and who knows, maybe the nvidia driver works with that chipset as well....
And I thought my wife carried everything in her purse.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
...he got Linux running on a PC.
Well, come to think of it, that IS news!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
A real good challenge would be Linux for Furby...
The funniest thing for me was RedHat complaining that there was not enough memory (32Meg, come one, isn't that enough to *install*). My favourite "mini" distribution is Peanut Linux . It's the one I use on all my machines, big and small. I have running it on a P120/32Meg RAM with WindowMaker as windowmanager and it runs really smooth (while playing MP3's, in mono however). The installation process never complained a single time about "lack of memory". :-)
Ah, the days that 4Meg of RAM was huge and 8Meg of RAM was overkill
This was my 500th post on slashdot. Feel honoured I used it on you ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
COOL!!! HEHEHE! :-)
Just you can imagin
if we all would know
root password for cash register
and we can make back door to
get this money!!! :-)
What do you thing? Would be this posible?
- Vlad.
I noticed that the page numbers were not consecutive (sp?) and peeked around some.
;-)
Check out the 404 page on e.g. http://27.org/linuxregister/003.html
Nice
quake on a cash register?
hell yeah I'll work overtime =P
"This is a great hack if you ask me."
Yeah, well no one did.
-12 troll
Folks, Its just a re-packaged PC. No big deal getting RH running on a PC.
to NetBSD.
This "Cash Register" is really just a PC!!! I've had one of these things running Linux for years. It also runs OS/2, Win98, WinNT, and Win2000. Honestly, I'm really surprised this made it to slashdot. This is barely a hack at all.
If you'd bothered to follow the link, you'd see it pointed to the polls page and said:
Poll
Best Desktop Environment?
KDE 3 (5910)
Which aint offtopic.
damn people who can't read.
Move faster
At the end, the guy said he was syslogging it to a printer, and would like to have that serve as a caller ID someday. Why not just use the display as caller ID? It would be perfect. I suppose he could also print it, to have a record of it, but displaying it would be great (don't have to get up to see it.)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Linux has been ported to uCsimms, Palm devices, inventory devices (wireless inventory machines at Hahn have been running eDesktop for a while now), TiVos, web cameras, you name it.
This doesn't sound all that new to me...
But some compinies have been running a Unix/Linux based cash registers for years now, and have the LED working. Pertty cool for one guy to do it for fun though...I've always wanted to...
it's the model 4 p.o.s. cash register, get it? p.o.s.....? heh.
dmarien
While this has 'cool factor', it's really not that impressive. Looking at the specs here:
e s/ 40System.pdf
http://www.ultimatetechnology.com/media/brochur
You can see that this thing's basically just a PC with a cash drawer.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
Now if you ask me, all this "linux on this and linux on that" is getting very old very fast. I have been all through this with the Amiga, and looked what happened with that! Windows based pc magazines and sites seem to have stopped saying "oooh look what it can run on" and are saying "oooh look what YOU can do with it" which is infinatly better from my point of view because i dont want to be left salivating over systems i cant have (well maybe in this case its a bit different). What i DO want to be left doing is thinking "hmmm thats actually useful to me, now how do i get my bosses to actually think along the same lines as me?". Im sorry for venting all this on you, but from where im standing, Linux is marketing itself to the end user much like the Amiga did, and showing niche cases of what it can do for a subselect of humanity rather than the actual userbase.
I slid the little PC out the back and then took the cover off. The case is like 16 gauge steel. Seriously, it's thicker metal then that of my gun safe. I figured they did that for additional security or RF shielding or both. (from this page)
Le 5 mai, n'oubliez pas de voter!
Checking out the specs in the pdf file,
it can be seen that this register comes
with a joystick/game port.
Sorry sir, please step up to the next
register, this one is closed
(while playing Wolfenstien)
I spent the last five years working in the Point of Sale industry. We made it a rule that all systems we put out had Doom installed on them, as long as the system was basically a PC...
All around this province, unwitting shopkeepers have Doom installed in their store... Actually we have it in pet stores, hospital gift shops (with a health/armour meter on the 2x20 pole display at one particualr store), grocery stores, etc...
The article was interesting, but to me, just as entertaining was the 404 error for the host when I went searching for the gaps in his battle with the cash register, such as 003.html or 007.html.
neat little zork message.
Home Depot was experimenting with Linux as the point of sale operating system over 2 years ago. They had a test store up and working more than a year ago in Atlanta, GA.
Other companies, like IBM, who currently use Flex OS have also been experimenting with Linux instead. Most POS terminals are simply PCs with a cash drawer anyway.
-Runz
As someone who works for a POS company, it's not really that impressive. Lots of cash registers can run Linux, it's when they get deployed that's more impressive. The company I work for has certified on RedHat and Windows and our POS runs on Java. It's not that big a deal as long as the registers are just fancy PCs. What is cool is that I'm rolling my own embedded Linux to deploy on diskless cash registers using Busybox and Etherboot in 1500 stores. I'll be sure to post on Slashdot once our customer is about to deploy.
Posting anonymously just in case someone doesn't want me talking about it (stupid industry).
IBM Retail Store Solutions has been offering Linux solutions for quite some time.. see link here..
Linux and Java support from IBM Retail
So I guess we haven't been paying too much attention to what goes on behind the cash registers..
What's the big deal about this? From what I can tell, this is a standard PC platform with VGA, ethernet, PS/2 keyboard, IDE, etc. What made it such a "hack" to install Redhat on it?
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
NetBSD already has an official port for that platform anyway, call me when it runs on a toaster...
Just Go Here
http://www.viewtouch.com/select.html
When you can give the customer the benefit of 20 years in the business, a fully rendered GUI on 15" & 17" LCD touchscreen displays, Kitchen/Bar Video, X terminal touchscreens everywhere instead of Linux computers everywhere, and link 200 of a company's restaurants together in real time, you just let us all know.
The fact that they got Linux working on this machine is no great feat.. Seeing as UTC sells their machines with Linux preinstalled =) Seeing as I am the developer who wrote many of the Linux drivers for some of UTC's proprietary hardware I can assure you that UTC is always more than happy to sell a POS machine with a custom Linux install.
Linux or FreeBSD POS is NOT like this -- or SHOULDN'T be.
First of all, you don't put Linux computers everywhere; you put X terminals everywhere. And instead of using Serial and parallel ports you use USB. Oh hell, go read the book. at viewtouch.com
There are companies that had this system years ago and hung lots of touchscreen x terminals all around a restaurant or a bar. Today they have hundreds of installed locations, all linked in real time. You just never heard of them. Check out viewtouch.
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these *whack* ouch!! Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!!!
If you don't know why I'm calling you a fucktard, get a damn clue.
Actually, this doesn't surprise me too much. Most of the cash registers that you see in larger chain stores are honestly just pc's. Sometimes they will have some non-standard periphial connections, for example some of the IBM registers (I think the 7390 series) use rj style connectors to connect 99% of the periphials. Some of the older registers are honestly just dumb terminals also. But when you go to walmart, or to Winn-Dixie, you'd be surprised to find out that those registers are commonly an older model pc. Something between a 486 and a Pentium 2.
:)
It is true that some of them use different hardware, I think I've seen some that use PC104 architecture. Essentially the companies manufacturing the cash registers simply want to get the job done cheaply on their end so that they can sell them and make a good profit. There's enough standard pc hardware already out there that it ends up being cheaper for them to use.
The grocery store I worked at in high school had Fujitsu POS's and they were simply 486 66mhz computers. They had all the standard connections and everything, they even ran DOS! We installed Doom on one of them just to say we had done it
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
If this is done the RIGHT way then all the touchscreen displays are X terminals. You have a lot to learn. Hopefully you won't roll out 1500 locations based on a lot of bad ideas, which is what you are admitting that you are doing. Just go type Linux and POS into Google - you'll easily find a company already doing this and in business for 20 years. You could do it the right way, but not unless you have a little humility and are willing to go to Google and look for Linux POS.
He's missing the ultimate peripheral, the till ( place where the money goes ).
I'm wondering, if he were to take the till in and out (what sales associates and managers do to count out the register in order to have the correct amount inside, typically $125), does he have to mount and remount?
blah
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/26/73653/5911
Free as in CHER-CHING! Three dollars and seventy nine cents please.
There you have it - linux is usable for eCommerce after all!
>This is a great hack if you ask me.
As many have pointed out, this is hardly a hack. It's just a PC.
What I'd like to know is why people keep spending so much time getting Linux to run on silly little toys rather than making it better and more accessible on the platforms it already runs on.
Linux is not going to beat Windows by running on my watch, microwave, or cordless drill.
Linux is not going to conquer the desktop by running on my radar detector, VCR, or electric razor.
Yet I bet it will run on one of those devices before it's ready for me to install it on my mother's computer.
-l
Everybody knows M$ had a monopoly on POS systems.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
But it's really not at all impressive. It's standard Intel hardware, through and through. Only thing you'd have to do that's nonstandard is get the secondary display up and running, and im sure that that's probably just a serial device.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
And maybe a sticker [easy to remove so i dont get a bollocking] saying something like "And THIS is what you put at the heart of your company's network?"
I dont have much call to go to Wimbledon though...
"Windows and Linux can co-exist on the same machine." - Microsoft Corporation.
would you like that in paper, plastic, or .tar
Anybody who writes...
..."
"...It used the hard disk (I could hear the disk running) but when it tried to decompress something (couldn't tell what) it kernel panics with a really cool error message saying that lower memory address such-and-such was being overwritten by higher address so-and-so. It needs more RAM.
...is okay in my book.
:)
This is the single best application of Linux that i have ever seen. Scrolling poll data would just be so kick to have running. printing netstat data to the poll and being able to scan in those old robot games that used bar codes for mods would be just too cool. really a good hack.
Here is the Linux Device Drivers book online, for free, in all its glory. Start hacking!
its nice to see all the people who got layed off doing something "interesting" wih there time - why dont they just go look for a fucking job or do something useful you linux fag!
Oh, wow. He got Linux to install on a PC. Stop the presses!
In case you weren't paying attention, that "cash register" is nothing but a PC with some non-standard peripherals. Hardly a groundbreaking hack.
Go to the grocery store today and see that MOST cash registers are in some way Intel based. This install is no real shock. Hell - it is a snap if you ask me.
Now if it was one of those old style registers w/ just the 10 key + - x / etc, then I would be interested.
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
We tended to run OS/2 on ours, since back in those days it was a major step up from DOS, better at networking, and could get a way with fewer resources than most Unix systems.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
That register originally ran on a custom version of Win98 (or so this guy claims) so it is not such a big surprise. The quecat bit is nice though (mine is set up to read my student ID card and log me into my system using a PAM module).
a beowulf cluster of one of these.....wow!
(had to be said)
I guess naming something the "Model 40 POS" cash register has different connotations in the cash register and computer industries. ;)
slashdot!=valid HTML
BTW, the reason I have web pages for this at all is that once I realized Linux would run on these then I realized that my mom could possibly move to Linux for her POS OS (which would solve some problems she's been having lately). And so I took pictures so she and my brother could see my progress. I have an automatic thumbnailing script that makes those pages, and I used that. After I repeated myself twice when I was doing things, I made little notes.
But I never claimed it was any great hack, just Linux on a second-hand cash register. I certainly wasn't trying to impress anyone, I'm just having fun...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Before I could get the manual, I didn't know how to talk to it. I had no serial port info, so I was trying all sorts of stuff. I looked all over the web and couldn't find much. I wrote an email to the manufacturer and told myself that if I didn't hear back, I'd take it apart. When they sent me the manuals, it was fairly trivial to write a tiny perl script that sent information to it. I have no idea if the VFD commands are similar to the MO commands and I didn't "download any code".
The thing people don't realize is that before I got the screwdriver out, I didn't even know if it was a PC. And in kind of a leap of faith, my mom had bought 10 of them hoping she could use them. So I grabbed one, took it apart, and she's now got them working. But yeah, it is just a PC. And I'm having fun playing with it (Caller ID on the pole display will be cool, and I'm thinking xmms-based VU meters would be nice as well). The only reason there are web pages is because my thumbnailer script makes them. I just added some comments.
Hey, If I install linux on my PC can I get a story on slashdot?? That is exactly what this is.
No, this is me discovering how POSes are built, partly to help my mom out, partly to have fun with old hardware. If it isn't impressive, then that's ok by me. I never claimed it would cause world peace or cure the common cold or anything. I could have cared less it got on Slashdot. In fact, it would have been better if I had got everything working before people saw it... :-)
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't criticizing you. I'm all for people playing with setting up Linux on unconventional hardware, and to tell you the truth, after seeing your usage of the customer display, I'm thinking about getting one for myself to display uptime or something. :-)
/. front page, but that's not your fault. :-)
;-)
What I was criticizing, was the fact that this story got to
Anyways, good luck to you and hopefully you can convince your mom to switch to Linux.
I would like to see linux running on industrial touch panel systems, the siemens ones are now using windows and it is slow as hell