etouchOS Retail - first install

"It's killa!"

That's the vote on our first etouchOS Retail beta installation. Extremely fast and very easy.

Where?

Il Toro Pasta & Espresso Bar,
321 North East Rd  
Hampstead Gardens, SA 5086
Australia

Not all smooth sailing

It would come as no surprise that we've had a few interesting moments along the way (with more to come no doubt).

First pass? Void button wasn't working (fixed now!)

The printer? 
Originally we were planning for the receipts to be the Brother RD102mm size paper. Still on our todo list to get supply.  

So, in the short term 80mm paper.


See, most POS printers have standard size paper. In other words, if the printer takes 76mm paper that's what you get for it. The TD4000 (read more here), well it lets YOU choose (up to 102mm) the size you want.

It printed. No error, just the alignment was not correct.

No problem except we hadn't told the printer that we had installed 80mm paper. 


Now, this is where that TD4000 and Brother's printer software comes into its own.  You can create your own paper size within the printer software. Let me just say that again, "YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN PAPER SIZE!" 

We created a continuous roll with 80mm width in the Brother software. Save. Done. Print.

Simple! Thanks Brother über geeks!

We've got more to do with etouchOS Retail, but the printing is sorted!

etouchOS with Brother TD 4000

Some Background
Well it's been an interesting few weeks. For sometime, one of my sons has been on my case about writing a simple, fast Point of Sale system (POS). I had been quite dismissive of the idea until a couple of clients started to pressure me. They'd seen what I'd done with touch screen software with the original Windows Tablets and wanted me to do something for retail.

Enter Brother
I had a chat with my colleagues at Brother Printers as we'd been working together on my etouchOS Wholesale Sales and Ordering system and had successfully married Microsoft Windows 7 (and now Windows 8) Tablets with their range of mobile printers. They'd pointed me in the right direction when writing label printing from within my JobCardTS package as well.

Brother is one of those companies that everyone knows about. I do mean everyone, and the common theme? Their printers work. All the time and just about anywhere. No complaints.

The TD4000
So, what model printer?

The new TD4000 series (the TD4100N is net-workable)is a printer designed by the über printer geeks at Brother to allow for label and receipt printing. That's right! Label AND receipt printing!

Now I know printers are not the sexy part of IT, the sexy stuff;  the iPhone, iPad, Galaxy, Window 7 etc etc etc that's where the news is. Until you need to print your work. 

Back to the TD4000. Why?

• Bring your own paper. 
• Receipts up to 100mm wide
• Labels - yes labels. A compelling proposition when you're a small business owner and you can switch the receipt paper to print product/food labels. 
• Brother P-touch software - make your own labels!
• No serial ports needed in your POS (more on that later)

etouchOS Retail

Today (20th Sept '12), it's still a work-in-progress (see the first installation story here) etouchOS Retail (it's that new that the web site is not done yet!)

We've got a bit more to do yet, but it works. And it's FAST, SIMPLE and VERY EASY to use. Thanks to my son. Whenever  I strayed to the normal IT inclination of making it more complex, he stopped me. He designed the layout. Touch screen, user definable buttons. 24 to a screen. How many screens? As many as you want.

The other thing?
It has to work on anything from a Microsoft Windows PC to a Windows touch screen tablet. Yes, a tablet. And, it works on Microsoft Windows 8 (intel/amd).

That's why no serial ports. All usb or ethernet.

And the TD4000?
It works out of the box, install the software (Works with Windows 8 without missing a beat), plug it in and away you go.

As I said, nobody thinks about printers, until they stop working. These printers just keep on going.

The TD4000? Well the über geeks at Brother have designed it so you don't have to be a geek to get it to work, a major consideration for us.

The offer here.

More to come about etouchOS Retail later.