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Ask Slashdot: An Open Handheld Terminal For Retail Stores?
Evil Al writes "From the ubiquitous Verifone card terminals to the fancy Apple Store terminals, point-of-sale devices are everywhere. But does anyone know of an open terminal (with printer + Wi-Fi), preferably running Linux, that we can use to run a custom application for retail, made by a reputable manufacturer?"
Fried pasta?
you know, some things just don't exist yet. like fusion power, warp drive, and cold fusion.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
But does anyone know of an open terminal (with printer + Wi-Fi), preferably running Linux, that we can use to run a custom application for retail, made by a reputable manufacturer?
Just curious but why does the operating system underneath it all matter? It seems the application is key and you can open source that regardless of the platform it is running on. Why not an iPod touch + card reading sled + open source app, an app that you distribute internally as an enterprise app so it doesn't need the Apple approval process that a regular app would need?
Stuff that actually matters rarely comes out first or is even remotely available in 'open source' circles. Innovation rarely happens in such circles, just reinventing of the wheel.
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpointofservice/
If you intend to process credit card payments through your custom application on the point-of-sale device, you'll likely fall under the purview of the Payment Card Industry's Payment Application Data Security Standard (PCI PA-DSS), which may require a source code audit and limit what you can have the software do. That may be no problem for you depending on your resources and intended use of your software, but it's worth keeping in mind.
Without the printer option, I would guess that there are a number of Linux driven pads around, then use a central networked printer.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
But does anyone know of an open terminal (with printer + Wi-Fi), preferably running Linux, that we can use to run a custom application for retail, made by a reputable manufacturer?
But no mention of it needing to be handheld. Sure, a handheld POS is nifty and all, but it does make it that much more complicated. Really if someone is just establishing a retail setup a POS in a static location would be more reliable and less expensive, which are both positive traits in the chaos of a start-up.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
you could just contact a manufacturer like NCR and get a list of the POS devices they have......seriously there are people out there that will be more informed than the trolls that are likely to reply.
Your link for him to just google it has it's own issues:
"403. That’s an error. /custom?query=linux+point+of+sale&sa=Search&client=pub-5834014132134539&forid=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en from this server. (Client IP address: 174.55.251.81)
Your client does not have permission to get URL
We apologize for your inconvenience, but this request could not be processed. :)
Please click here to continue your search on Google.
That’s all we know."
if their voting machines are anything to go by, they're open as in Goatse.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
In my opinion, if there is a FOSS POS application or system out there, one would hope it has appropriate interfaces to payment gateways, which is a much better idea than dealing directly with payment card companies.
For those of you stuck with WinCE scanners, like Target employees, here's a fun project:
Jimmy-jam control-C in the CLI-looking scanning screen ( for backstocking, for example ). You may may to mash some keys blindly, like Y ( for yes, I want to quit this program ) in response to poorly displayed queries on the way out.
Eventually, you'll just be hanging out in WinCE. There's isn't a whole lot you can do here with your limited permissions, but there is one thing you can do...
Find the phazer sound, wherever it's hiding. It's a sound file... possibly in a folder for WinCE's crummy media player. Highlight it with yon stylus, and copy it. Now, find the the Beep-Bee-Doop sound file. That isn't its real name, but it's a real sound file, not some kind of built-in hardware warble. Change this files name, then paste in the phazer sound and name it to whatever the Beep-Bee-Doop was named.
Presto! You now have the coolest goddamn scanner in Target. Pew, pew, pew!
Well, score 1 out of 3. Fusion power and cold fusion both exist, just on scales too small to be practical (so far).
:o)
It would be nice if I could say the same about warp drives...
http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business+Product+and+Services/Mobile+Computers and their competitors. Like Dolphin.
Zerba and their competitors.
Correction: "... too small and unreliable..."
And, OP, didn't find much. By the way, justfuckingcheckyourlinks, please.
I can't believe that somebody had the gall to mod you up for calling out an Ask Slashdot question that is entirely valid.
That's a pretty looking IP address you have there....
I'll ask the easy question.. WHY?
Seriously, when you business relies on a machine that must work or you are losing money, everyone wants someone to turn to when it doesn't work. That someone isn't a man page or IRC channel or mailing list or whatever support for $foo GPL program here. It's a computer, not a holy war. You press buttons and it does things. When you want a computer you control, you run linux, when you want a computer that grandma can use, you give her a Mac and when you want retail system that checks people out, you run whatever OS that your POS maker asks you to.
Not sure I'd want my payment system running on WiFi... but I'm not an expert on how secure this would be.
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
Well, fusion power doesn't exist at all, since we can't power anything with fusion yet.
Well, fusion power doesn't exist at all, since we can't power anything with fusion yet.
Except when we use solar.
Without thinking about it too much - is there any reason you couldn't get some Android tablets and rig them up to do what you want?
AML makes Linux-powered portable handheld computers with Wi-Fi and barcode scanning capability, and they'll give you their source disk with your hardware if you ask, so you can modify it as much as you like if their standard suite of applications don't suit you. You would also need to add a printer like the Epson TM-T88 and an RS232 magstripe-reader like the Unitech MS-240. For the actual card clearing, you'd probably either tie this system into your existing POS mainframe (if you have one) or you'd tie it into an Internet-based POS solution like Authorize.net, or if you are feeling ambitious, you can integrate over SSL directly with a clearing network like TSYS (formerly VisaNet / VITAL). Of course, your biggest expenditure is probably going to be paying someone to write the software to tie all this together for you (unless you can pull it all off yourself, in which case hats off to you!)
http://www.amltd.com/product.asp?pid=m7220
http://pos.epson.com/products/prodsPMOP.htm
http://ute.com/products_info.php?pid=211
P.S.
I have worked on the AML portable computers before. I have not specifically worked with the Epson printer or the Unitech magstripe reader, but both should work in conjunction with the AML unit's WiFi and serial capabilities respectively. You would probably need to custom-make a cable for the magstripe reader since the AML unit uses a non-standard RS232 connector (RJ45 if I recall correctly).
The asker is probably looking for the Exadigm XD2000
It is pretty much exactly the specs requested.
I don't think you read the whole post regarding open handheld terminals. While I'm happy you've never had to work a retail job, there's a bit of a difference between what the OP is asking for and a standard-sized register.
So you have some alternative theory as to why stars shine, then...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Open source has not made it to the Banking industry as of yet- proprietary closed software is more secure in their minds. Anything you wrote would need to fall under the PCI/PCI-DSS or what ever acronym is important this week. The closet thing you can get is an Ingenico terminal. They have wireless terminals that are a bit large but very nice and Linux based. If your account is big enough or you got enough $$ they will program what you need. Here's the kicker...the terminal DOES NOT MATTER! You can use a cell phone w/swiper just as well with any sort of front end you want. What you need to look for is a Payment Gateway (USAePay, Rocketgate, whoever, there are tons). Wireless terminals all send their info over the internet through these gateways. Most of these gateways also have direct internet access as well. Make a program to take care of the front end you want. Then talk to your gateway, they all have sets of premade APIs ready for easy integration or you can have your programmer make one from scratch they give you the tools to develop one on your own.
Haha. Well, that may be reliable... but I guess I meant controllable.
Cold fusion in cells like the one used by Pons and Fleishman has been observed many times now over the last 20 years. But never (AFAIK) in a way that was predictable or controllable. Almost as though there is some unknown variable. But until we are able to predict when it will happen and how much, it isn't of much use to anybody.
Symbol is now part of Motorola: http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business%20Product%20and%20Services/Bar%20Code%20Scanning/Scan-equipped%20Mobile%20Computers. Fate worse than d
But, if you want open, SquareUp mentioned elsewhere looks to be the easiest approach- just plug it into the audio jack of any phone/tablet/whatever. Using a camera for barcode recognition is ok for very low volume transactions only though.
I don't know who makes it but BCF uses Linux on their POS systems. ARTS (http://www.nrf-arts.org/) maybe of some help.
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
I use to do some consulting work with Retail Navigator (http://www.retailnavigator.com/) back in '00. They had a handheld sytsem running Linux. I don't know if they still do.
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
senortech.com.au
Support ubuntu and red hat linux on some of their terminals at least.
For wifi and portability, try looking for a Senortech device called IsPAD 8 - not sure if that has linux support though.
Signed
A happy customer
These days my HTC phone costs substantially less than one of those things did, has better battery life, a bar code scanner library that works respectably well and can be programmed in Java. Oh, and a working wireless TCP/IP connection. Hmm. Which would I choose?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If I were looking, I'd look for something like this. Wifi for weeks per charge and very light. You could customize the hell out of this e-ink tablet.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
This link:
http://www.viewtouch.com/index.html
they are all linux, all POS
including wifi tablets and PDA size devices
A lot of really good companies make just that. Did you not bother to search?
Many recent experiments by other scientists in the field have shown that cold fusion can be controlled and predicted quite effectively
It doesn't matter what they run. I helped develop an ePoS system for a public house running on LAMP, with the ePoS terminals bought on eBay running Damn Small Linux and various brand hand-held devices with wireless networking running WinMob, accessing different addresses for their respective interfaces. One of the only times I've done work in exchange for free beer! :D
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I know open source linux POS (and use it):
SUNYARD
http://www.sydtech.com.cn/en/tech/download.asp
www.sunyard.ru
It using reduced kernel 2.4.6 and You can upgrade it or make You own build
Integration of payment facilities is what tends to break "my own POS" solutions. As soon as you touch a regular payment system you'll hit the circus surrounding PCI compliance, and that's a headache in itself.
There is something new on its way, but as first talks have only started this month I don't expect anything exciting to happen for at least another 3 months. It's probably going to be 2012 before this comes out proper..
Good luck!
Insert
"Many recent experiments by other scientists in the field have shown that cold fusion can be controlled and predicted quite effectively"
If you have any links to such I would be very interested in seeing them.
As would I, so long as the are links to reproducible experiments, not just irreproducible anecdotes and oddities.
However, don't forget the real cold fusion: muon-catalyzed fusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion It works best when truly cold -- like the temperature of liquid hydrogen. ;-)
Too bad that the energy cost to make the muons is much greater than that from the fusion....
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
Is it really that hard to:
1) actually read the question at hand to find out what the submitter is really looking for
2) post links that actually work
3) not be a complete fucking douchebag
I don't get why you don't just get a Vx680 or Vx820 that are coming out - you can run your own application layer on top of the software on it (making it as open as you need to be). Both PCI:DSS and PA:DSS will need to be adhered to to, of course.
A motorola/Symbol MC75 coupled with a wifi-enabled Zebra MZ320 would do the work splendidly. the motorola mc74 sports windows mobile 6.5 wich is, well not super-easy-cocoa-to-write but customiseable enough and theyre not THAT expensive landing at about 1500-2000$ a piece, plus a dataplan if you think to use the 3g option. The printer sells for about 750-800$ but that should give you a complete functioning unit. do you plan to couple a credit card reader to it?
Whats wrong with the standard computer one that your local POS shop carries? Most of them run xp or older just build the os yourself....
Does a card card reader read the same kind of card cards that go in an automated teller machine machine?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Square (https://squareup.com) makes one for Android powered devices, I know of a photographer that uses this to accept payment when he's out on gigs.
a company i used to work for used an Archos 9 tablet running Win7 Starter (though Ubuntu could work on there just the same). We had a Firefox-based POS system, had a USB mag-stripe reader, and used wifi (with a hidden SSID, MAC address filtering, and WPA2 to prevent anyone else from getting on the network). A networked printer took care of receipts.
a word of caution: one of the stores I set it up for managed to drop the tablet literally within 5 minutes of me finishing the set-up and shattered the glass, and we haven't been able to find replacement panels anywhere.
Specifically cold fusion. Google Rossi and the e-cat. He says there will be a test installation done in October. It's hard to say for sure, but the guy has over $500,000 of his own money sunk into it and isn't interested in investors, so there's no obvious financial gain to be had from lying to us. His patent application was denied from the Italian patent system because he can't explain how it works.
I have this. If anyone is interested, visit my web site (where you won't see any mention of this specific project yet but where anyone can see who I am and what I do) and find my contact information there. I have provided my POS help and source code to a few people over the years so that they can establish POS businesses in their locations. I would submit many of the details of new things going on to Slashdot but there's no guarantee it would be published so instead I'll make a whitepaper available to anyone who wants it and contacts me. I'm busy with creating a next generation POS which won't require any POS computer(s) in any retail location itself. What I currently have is not really simply a POS solution but actually more of a touchscreen development framework for displays of all sizes, from the smallest to the largest, which allows people to work collaboratively across the LAN & Internet. I've been at this for several decades now and have always believed that the future will be all about touch screens everywhere. I'm not a programmer myself so if there are any programmers who want to work with me then I invite them to get in touch. There are many people I am working with already but we always need people who want to also be involved in things touchscreen related.
--Gene Mosher
He should try patenting in the US then. Here, you don't have to explain how it works. But in some rare cases, you might be called upon to show a working model.
Go Android young man... go Android.
A cool WiFi Samsung pad, local server, ssh
links all ways (https)... or better a ssh tunnel
and VPN.
The key phrase is custom application.
The entire application environment needs
to be "designed" and "maintained".
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Your use of apostrophes has "it is" own issues as well.