Page 1 of 1

All kinds of questions, not that many answers

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 11:26 pm
by infolock
Well, it's been a while since I've been posting on here, but there is always a good explanation. first, i've just finished working with 3 clients' intranet web designs and finally have those out of the way. Secondly, I've been given a challenge : creating a POS system.

Just to clarify to some of you, no I'm not meaning POS as in piece of sh*!, but POS as in point-of-sales application...

I have a buddy that has a retail store and his current system just flat out sux. So, he says "ur good at computers, why don't you make me one that will work better".

Of course, I can never say no to a job ( even if I have no friggin clue as to how to do it ), so i say "sure man, piece of cake". I mean really, how hard could it be?

Jeeez, was I in for a suprise. There are so many problems and questions related to this that some of you aren't gonna read it all, but for those of you who have went through this kinda thing I encourage you to read on.

I'm a php developer. I used to be a delphi coder. With that out of the way< i realize there are 2 main problems with creating a POS.

#1, reading the barcode scanner. I understand that if you buy a new scanner, software comes with it ( suposebly ) that will read the data that is scanned and transmit it to a serial port on your pc. My biggest problem with that is, how in the hell are you suposed to read that data then? Is the data stored on the pc, or kept in memory. How can you retrieve the data from that scanner and say query a database full of inventory with it?

#2. I've done some serious research on this subject through google, and found that there are all kinds of would-be applications that claim to be able to do what I need... Read the data from the scanner's software that's on the client's pc, and upload/query that data to a database. Now, if one language ( such as Foxpro ) can do that, I can only assume that php or delphi could do it as well.

So my main 2 quesitons so far is, where can i find info on this, and can PHP do this... I am starving for info to read and study to better understand this concept of reading scanners, I just really need a good kick start to get me giong...

with that out of the way, we come to the easy part :

touch screens.

Currently, I already know how to use a touch screen monitor to control the user's input. So, they can press buttons and make actions ( ie, touching a virtual keypad on the monitor to type in their username/password, dollar amounts, etc without having to use a keyboard or mouse ). That is no big deal. However, when it comes to interacting with the reciept machine to get it to print out a receipt, or interacting with the cash drawer to eject when the user presses No Sale, where can I find information on that?

As I said before, I've exhausted google and I can't find a single thing on these subjects. Maybe it's the keywords i'm using to search, or maybe that kinda info just isn't out there, I dunno. But it's giving me a brain c ramp cuz i'm almost positive this sort of thing would be simple ( yet tedius ) to develop and have it work correctly and efficiently.

Anyways, if anyone has any insight on any of these things i've mentioned, please feel free to post it or drop me a line. I'd be eternally grateful.

Sorry for the length ;)

Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2004 9:24 pm
by Pyrite
Pick you up a CueCat scanner somewhere, RadioShack used to give them away for free but I bet you can find one somewhere cheap. And just started playing with the software.

Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2004 10:32 pm
by infolock
damn, didn't know you could do that. sweet man i'll check it out. thanks