Linux on a Used Cash Register: Reloaded

plimsoll writes "Hot on the heels of the original cash register running Linux, dumpster-diver Aaron Benoy has implemented his own GNU/Linux POS project with a twist: Ruins in ASCII, a late IBM 4694 removed from its case and reloaded with Linux to become a self-described 'video sculpture' showcasing 'an infinite loop of 180 distinct 7-second long video clips of various abandoned, ruined or otherwise vacant buildings and infrastructure' on its 9-inch paper white phosphor terminal display. Southern geeks can see it unveiled tonight at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival."

Comments

Interesting Art

[techsoldaten]

I know nerds (I use the term with reverence) don't always think that much of art, but something to remember is that our original conception of 'art' was a purely useful thing.

There was a time Westerners saw art really as a Machia, something you made and / or engaged in. Science and art were really the same endeavor for people like the Greeks. No division in our mental lives.

For some reason, just the description of this project makes me happy.

M

Re:Interesting Art

[Alien Being]

It makes me feel happy, sad, nostalgic, fearful, curious and inspired all at once. You might enjoy this

Not that cool?

[KuNgFo0]

From the hardware specs:

Hardware
CPU Intel Celeron (Covington) 400.912 MHz
RAM 96MB PC100
Hard disk Maxtor 6.4GB ATA/66 5400 RPM
Motherboard Soyo SY-6BE+ ATX
Display adapter SiS 6326 4MB AGP
Pole display Emax Universal 104 Parallel DB-25
Monitor IBM 9" Monochrome 4694 Video Display
PSU Generic 235W

Isn't this a pretty typical computer? Actually, probably a faster computer than many of the geeks on slashdot have? It's plenty better than my 486 personal web server.

Re:Not that cool?

[blackicye]

I'd have to agree, there really isn't anything that impressive about this feat, given the specs of the system..IMO if it would be a greater feat if he installed windows XP and got its screensavers running on this thing. Maybe we're getting old and in denial of it? naaah *pats his faithful Celeron 300A box which has been running at an "astounding" 400mhz overclock for almost 6 years*

Re:Not that cool?

[Pantero Blanco]

Pretty slow by today's standards (still better than my k6-2 at 350 Mhz), but, yes, there's nothing incredible about making a computer with those specs run Linux. Making different things run Linux is more of an inside joke or geek art. It's amusing, though not amazing.

Re:Not that cool?

[javaxman]

a quick google search reveals that the IBM POS machine in question does indeed include models with a ( from the above PDF ) "Intel Celeron 566/66". So I don't know if they have their specs a bit off, or if I looked up the wrong model, but the truth is the cash register is not *that* old, the manual is dated 2001.

I'm not sure that makes this less cool, since
(1) it's a freekin' cash register
(2) it's definitely isn't your typical slashdot-geek's video subsystem.

The 'found in a dumpster' bit is pretty cool, too. As is the 'retooled industrial equipment as art' spin. I like it.

But, no, it's not something from the mid-80's or anything. It's 'just' a cash register.

Re:Not that cool?

[javaxman]

I take that back. It looks like it has a pretty standard/weak video subsystem, and is certified to run Red Hat 7.1 ( kernel 2.4.2 ). Yes, you read that right, Linux is a *supported* OS on this puppy.

The list of video cards used in the 4694 makes me think that the claim 'incapable of displaying anything but text' sound more than a little fishy, too.

From the manual, again :

v 4694-244 and 205/245 - Cirrus GL5446 SVGA PCI video controller (model 244's have 1 MB of RAM installed, which yields up to 1024x768x256, while model 2x5's have 2MB of video RAM, yielding up to 1280x1024x256 or 1024x768x65535)
v 4694-207/247 and 307/347 models have AGP compatible video function embedded within the main system (VIA PM8601A) chip. Video RAM is part of system RAM and is reserved using the BIOS setup function. Once RAM is reserved as video RAM, it is no longer available for use as system memory. (For instance, a 32M system with 4M of RAM reserved for video will actually only have 28M of RAM available for system use (not counting memory required for BIOS shadowing, etc..)
v 4694-2x6- ATI Technologies Rage 128 Pro 4XL AGP2X video controller with 8MB of video DRAM, yielding support for resolutions up to 1280x1024x32M colors

frickin' Rage 128 Pro?!? I *just* retired a machine with that card in it...

geek question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the anode cap on the side of the 4694 CRT instead of the top? I suppose it could be anywhere in that plane, but this is the first I've seen this arrangement.

Re:geek question

[mikewas]

It can be oriented in any direction. The major concern is keeping it from arcing. The best way to keep it from arcing is to keep it well away from anything else.

Color tubes restrict how you can mount them. The guns are either arranged in an equilateral triangle (point up) or in a horizontal row with a pattern of red, blue & green phosphors to match.

Monochrome tubes give you a lot of options. Only one gun centered in the neck. No pattern of colored phosphors on the screen. It's all white so it's just spread inside the front of the tube. You can rotate the tube anyway you want, giving you infinite possibilities if it's round.

Old B&W TVs with round tubes made use of this. Most components were on a chassis at the bottom so it isn't top-heavy. Tuner & other controls somewhere near the top so it's easy to reach. Tube rotated to the side opposite the tuner so it's away from everything -- usually a bit above horizonal because the HV power supply will be at that end of the chassis & it's rather large.

Reusable acronym

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

GNU/Linux POS project

POS is such a great acronym : when the equipment is new, it means Point-Of-Sale, and when it's old and obsolete, it doesn't need to change acronym.

Kind of like "PC", come to think of it...

yeah!

[nbert]

all we need know is a bunch of hamsters in wheels keeping this thingie going and we are all set.

Since we're talking about ASCI - does anybody know where I can find this aalib demo just about anybody is talking about?

Videos I'd like to see

[Stevyn]

Are people buying copies of the operating system it runs.

$0.00
$0.00
$0.00

--Your bonus card has saved you $0.00 this year. Thank you for shopping at Linux Mart--

The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[cjsnell]

The sad thing about this article is that we still don't have a decent, non-specific, OSS point-of-sale package for *nix. I've seen cheezy GTK-based "cash register" apps but nothing that can compete (or even compare) to Windows-based products.

This is unfortunate. My father's company runs FreeBSD and OpenBSD on all of its servers but I still have to support over 35 Windows 2000 desktops here at our stores because there is no *nix alternative. Retail is the perfect place for Linux and the BSDs. Retail people need simple, easy-to-use interfaces and they do not want to deal with the problems associated with administering Microsoft OSes (worms, spyware, etc). I would love nothing more than to replace every single Windows desktop in this company with a X11-capable thin client.

Thoughts?

Re:The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[Slack3r78]

I've run into this same problem myself. My father still runs his system on a DOS based POS solution simply because I've been completely unable to find a suitable OSS replacement.

All I was looking for was a simple, NCurses based interface - a POS does not need X and the added overhead and boot time associated with it. I keep checking every few months, but there never seems to be anything worth the effort of migrating to. I've seriously considered picking up PostgreSQL myself to try to implement something as it seems like there's nothing coming out of the community right now.

Re:The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

Walk into a home depot and look at the app they use.

Re:The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[DogDude]

Retail people need simple, easy-to-use interfaces and they do not want to deal with the problems associated with administering Microsoft OSes (worms, spyware, etc).

Our store would also run a Linux based POS system if there was a decent one available, although not because of any so called "problems associated with administering MS OSes)". A cash register is generally a single purpose machine running one or two apps, tops. Our W2K POS machines only rebott/get turned off when the power goes out. They're rock solid, but the software is expensive ($1200/workstation).

Re:The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sad thing about this article is that we still don't have a decent, non-specific, OSS point-of-sale package for *nix.""

Are you serious?

http://www.linux-pos.org/ etc. Have you ever even looked up "Linux pos" on google. There are many stores which are currently using Linux in POS devices. Shit, call up NCR, IBM etc. Or Did you mean OSS as in open and Free with source, Professionally done sitting there on the Net just waiting for you? Because if that's the case I suggest you forget that and call up any of the many vendors who deal in Linux pos and have them pay you a visit instead.

"Retail is the perfect place for Linux and the BSDs. Retail people need simple, easy-to-use interfaces and they do not want to deal with the problems associated with administering Microsoft OSes (worms, spyware, etc)."

Correct. Hence all the big chains going to Linux for pos terminals. Its already happening.

Re:The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[cjsnell]

Nope, not an option. I'm a very experienced Perl programmer but that's irrelevant. A Web-based application cannot open cash register draws, draw to an LCD, or print receipts...at least, not without a really kludgy server-to-client piece.

Re:The sad thing... (slightly OT)

[Llynix]

Nope, not an option. I'm a very experienced Perl programmer but that's irrelevant. A Web-based application cannot open cash register draws, draw to an LCD, or print receipts...at least, not without a really kludgy server-to-client piece.

I was planning on writing an extension to firefox to control a draw. And there are plenty of programs on the net linking a LCD with a webpage with input. As for printing, css can handle that. The program could even have predefined label sets that work. As an added bonus, I was planning on accepting bar code reader input, and integrating with credit card companies. I did my homework, and from working three years in that dreaded shop I know what a POS needs.

Main reason I wanted to go PHP, was people seem to know how to use a webpage. Also you can easily integrate it with an online site.

Linux booths...

[xeoron]

This reminds me when I went to Showcase Cinemas Lowell with some friends. After the movie we went to see we decided to use the photo-booth in the lobby. It was unplugged, so we decide to plug it back in. To our surprise we discovered the booth booting Red Hat Linux. We never got any pictures taken, because the machine would hang while it was loading the camera or the printer driver (can't remember which).

Incomplete

[Sponge Bath]

... abandoned, ruined or otherwise vacant

In that case, they should have somehow involved the vi editor.

I work with these!!

[k4_pacific]

From the article:
"hardware so old it is incapable of displaying anything but text"

Speaking as someone who writes software for these boat anchors, I would like to point out that they have VGA monitors and can display 640x480 graphics in black and white with the standard 9" monitor or, with the optional 9" color monitor, 16 colors. My company, which does custom retail software, has several customers running these units. Most still on DOS, but a few on Windows NT.

Re:I work with these!!

[Gordonjcp]

Speaking as someone who does tech support for this stuff, they can do a hell of a lot better than that. Some of the new ones are really powerful (more powerful than my aging Duron 700, by a long shot). One model even has an NVidia 3D chipset... WTF?

Re:I can better that...

[MyDixieWrecked]

How about Menuet running on an ATM?

here in NYC, a lot of things run windows. When you go to penn station, the NJ Transit ticket machines are running NT 4. I've seen errors on them in the past, they software that's actually driving the display's UI and all that is just a visual basic application. Sometimes they crap out or bluescreen. not very often, though. I've only seen it happen 4 or 5 times in the past couple years. It's really neat to watch them reboot the system. You can see it pinging all its ticket servers and stuff. I assume they have the servers' firewall configured in such a way as to only allow incoming traffic from known IPs, either that, or their attached to a private network. either one wouldn't surprise me.

Even the Amtrak ticket machines run on computers. When you see the tech guy open the machine's case, there's a little beige tower inside with a keyboard and mouse.

lately, everything seems to be running windows. Frequently, in times square, the huge animated billboards will be bluescreened. It's pretty funny. You'd think that software for made for doing this stuff wouldn't crap out. You'd hope that no one installs quake on these machines or any other non-related software, but I guess people do.

I guess putting quake on the adserver box is to a windows geek what putting linux on a toaster is to a real geek.

Re:Ruins in apache

[AndroidCat]

It might make a good replacement for Edvard Munch's "The Scream" which was stolen recently.

Windows P.O.S.

[ImaLamer]

Typically when I go to the store and see a Windows P.O.S. (point of sale) device I hear this "Freudian Slip"

Excuse me sir, will that be crash or charge?

How 'southern' do we need to be?

[cammoblammo]

Southern geeks can see it unveiled tonight at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival.

All of those in the southern hemisphere repeat after me...

You Insensitive Clod!

Re:I can better that...

[ktakki]

Frequently, in times square, the huge animated billboards will be bluescreened. It's pretty funny. You'd think that software for made for doing this stuff wouldn't crap out. You'd hope that no one installs quake on these machines or any other non-related software, but I guess people do.

I'd love to see Quake broadcast on one of those screens above Times Square. Better yet, CounterStrike, with a CNN-style text crawl at the bottom of the screen:

...Cease fire in Iraq breaks down...Shia militia resorts to bunny-hop tactics...AWP Wh0r3 wounds three...OMFG u ghey camper...

If anyone can pull this off during the GOP convention I will pay them $1000.

k.