WANTED: Payment Terminal

From: Sam Collins (samcollins_at_noemail.com)
Date: 07/22/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:41:44 -0500

While I'm wading through hype & BS from various manufacturers' web
sites and off-topic replies from sales & marketing departments, I
thought I'd ask here if anyone knows of such a beast, running on a
Linux platform? Maybe there's a better place to ask?

We have a client looking to do a test-market with a small terminal,
similar to a credit-card terminal or a utility-bill payment terminal -
that is, relatively few peripherals.

He wants to put these in stores, and the cashiers would key in a code
(or possibly swipe a mag-stripe card), the terminal would dial a
server (or could already be online) and exchange a small amount of
data with the server, then print a receipt with a code number.

There are a number of credit-card and utility-bill terminals
available, but I haven't been able to discover if any of them support
a reasonably straight-forward method of programming - we have a
prototype running just fine, on a RH9 system, and would like to port
that code pretty much as-is... it would be a huge plus if there were a
clean way to send either patches or new code to the terminals.

Generally, the terminal should have the following:

   keypad
 
   printer - 27-to-40 columns - thermal or impact, but easy paper
             changing a definite plus

   display - don't need a lot, could get by with 2-to-4 lines by
             20-to-40 characters

   internet interface - could be slow modem or ethernet, this will
             not be transmitting or receiving a lot of data

   mag stripe reader - not necessary, but would be useful, and
             would be required for future expandsion of applications;
             could be interfaced via keyboard, usb or conventional
             serial ports if available

Thanks for any help you might be able to give!

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