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!