Ask Slashdot: An Open Handheld Terminal For Retail Stores? 114
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?"
Re:PCI (Score:5, Informative)
For all but the largest operations though, you need no code audits or anything of the sort: Even a chain with a couple dozen stores won't even be asked to do more than fill a questionnaire claiming to follow PCI standards, which as far as software go, aren't all that difficult to follow, especially if you leave most of the credit card handling to a third party, so you aren't stuck having to deal with securing encryption keys.
AML perhaps? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [amltd.com]
http://pos.epson.com/products/prodsPMOP.htm [epson.com]
http://ute.com/products_info.php?pid=211 [ute.com]
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).