I work for a music & film distribution company. We were happily using Linux diskless computers with Epson miniprinters as point-of-sale systems in our retail stores, until my country's government decided to make the use of officially approved fiscal cash registers mandatory. We still wanted to use computers, not cash registers in our stores so we purchased cash registers that came with serial interfaces, and we hooked them up to our computers replacing the miniprinters. I wrote a driver for them in Perl so now the clerks can still use the sales software they're accustomed to, but the receipts come out of a cash register instead of a printer. Basically, the cash register now acts as a printer via keyboard emulation. It even works in a network environment, i.e. several computers can print receipts on a single cash register.

sandman

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RE: Cash register driver
by SuperCruncher (Pilgrim) on Apr 26, 2000 at 21:50 UTC
    Wow. How do you even start trying to write a driver?
[reply]
      By looking at the documentation supplied by the manufacturer, scratching your head in disbelief and deciding to give up. :)
      But seriously, you won't believe the horrible misprints and ommisions one can find in documentation provided by Romanian manufacturers...

      sandman
[reply]
        This is a very interesting use. PLEASE write an article about the program and post it in the code catacombs. This is the kind of thing I would like to read about. If I can find one of those cash registers I will probably try to duplicate your work. PLEASE provide as many details as possible.
[reply]

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