POS 2

[Vec]

Can anyone direct me to a good teaching aid for designing point of sale systems in VB6.0? I researched it a little and found out that the POS (POINT OF SALE) cash drawer,and bar code scanner are controlled by simple keyboard and printer port commands, the cash drawer can be triggered to open using the printer port and the scanner hooks up between the keyboard and comp, and it sends keyboard text to the comp, so what I am seeking is an informative teaching aid that covers what commands need to be sent from a vb app etc, a book, or website, any lead would be great!

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"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Univer

 

[gpalmer711]

Hi I would recommend 2 things.

1) See thread thread222-50515 this shows you how to sent output through the printer port.

2) Contact the manufacturer of the POS equipment that you intend to purchase and confirm what infomation needs to be sent to the cash draw and what information (ie format etc) is received from the scanner.

Most manufacturers provide SDKs for programers the following link gives an example.

http://www.apgcd.com/main/drivers.php

Hope this helps

Greg Palmer

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Any feed back is appreciated.

 

[Golom]

I have written a couple of POS systems and the device (i.e. scanner, printer, cash drawer, bump bar, customer display, remote printers, etc.) control are certainly important. Even more important however is a solid understanding of the business requirements of the target market. Clearly a grocery supermarket POS will have vastly different characteristics than a high-end clothing store.

Here's a link to Monroe Consulting services who maintain code for OPOS (Object Oriented Point-Of-Sale) that provides (or at least attempts to) an architecture for handling and managing most of the devices that POS systems use. OPOS is one industry attempt to standardize the handling of those devices whose physical implementation and capabilities varies from one manufacturer to the next and one model to the next.

http://monroecs.com/opos.htm

PS. I am not hyping MCS and have no affiliation with them.

 

[Vec]

Thanks to you both, I have somewhere to start now.

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"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Univer