Finally found out what OS do grocery stores use on their POS systems.

[TommyVercetti]

POS = Point of Sale (check out counters).

I was at HEB (a grocery store in Texas), and was at the check out counter. Suddenly the check out machine just froze. So she called a supervisor who unlocked a cabinet and pressed the reset button. The machine reset, and it was a Dell PC. It went into scan disk and then booted up Windows 95. I can't believe they still use Windows 95.

I always suspected some speciality operating system, or at least some kind of UNIX.

One more mystery solved!

 

[Freejack2]

Dunn and Dunn (Aka Dumb and Dumber) used Windows NT back in 2000. No clue what they use today. A lot of Point of Sale systems are Windows based.

 

[bubbadu]

We use NT i believe @ Staples... but Windows 95 is just suck.

-Bubbadu

 

[Paulson]

They run different ones around here... they have single pc's running off of some specialty os (made by the company [Ex. cub foods, supervalu]) and those independent terminals send all their data back and forth to a windows NT or 2000 server (because they're all networked)

At least that's what I know...

 

[flyfish]

Target uses NT 4.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Paulson
They run different ones around here... they have single pc's running off of some specialty os (made by the company [Ex. cub foods, supervalu]) and those independent terminals send all their data back and forth to a windows NT or 2000 server (because they're all networked)

At least that's what I know...

Yep, that's pretty much it. All those boxes do is:

1. Scan UPC.
2. Reference database for price
3. Keep running total of items/cost
4. Send receipt file via serial port to thermal printer
5. Log transaction to server


Not really all that CPU/HD/memory intensive at all. Any Windoze OS would do fine...but 95 IS just a bit freakin' old.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Originally posted by: bubbadu
We use NT i believe @ Staples... but Windows 95 is just suck.

-Bubbadu

It was NT at our store

 

[Nocturnal]

I know at K-Mart for their self-check out registers they use NT.

 

[Eli]

The U-Scan machines at the Fred Meyers here in Portland use Windows 2000.. saw them rebooting a couple a while back.

 

[flamingelephant]

There are a couple lumber yards around town that still run their POS's with superdos!!!!
yippie!

 

[DanJ]

Best Buy uses NT4 as well. Was fun back in the day I could make it crash at will. Think my best was 5 registers in a 6 hour period.

Wasn't my fault though, system was too slow, if you typed really fast and entered sales really fast it'd just die.

 

[GigaCluster]

Fiesta Mart around here runs graphical P.O.S. software on top of X on Unix/Linux. I found that amazing.

 

[agnitrate]

We just got new registers 2 weeks ago at my store. They run Windows 95. Our old registers must have been about 15 years old and were 66 mhz chips. I miss those old guys

MichaelD is right. Those registers only report to the servers in the back. We have 2 pimped severs in the back that log everything and do it all for us.

-silver

 

[BurnItDwn]

The Company I work for (large drugstore chain that is actually growing and opening new stores all the time) uses DOS on the POS controllers (IBM 4683, 4693, and 4694 series registers)

Most of the stores have 486 or early pentium boxes to controll all the regs in the store (usually between 9 and 15 registers per store, though some have only 2 or 3 if they only have a pharmacy and no store front, and other large stores have close to 20 (especially the ones in Puerto Rico))

It is a heavily modded version of Dos ... but I believe its based off of Dos 6.2 .... (could be based off of 5 though)

 

[Goosemaster]

It it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Jugernot]

NT isn't so bad as it's stable... Win98 sucks ass.

 

[GeekDrew]

I saw one of the terminals at Burlington's Men's Wearhouse was a linux terminal...
I know that some at Kroger's are Win2k... same w/ Reisbeck's.
I have the POS machine at the family office running on WinXP... (just an MS Access POS solution i whipped up)

Drew

 

[amdskip]

The Walmart I work at has a server room with a bunch of loud Dell servers runing NT and I think there is a 2k in there too. When you scan cds in electronics, it grabs the file on the server too. Every register has a cat 5 back to Cisco switches in the front with like fiber/cat 5 running to the back.

Edit: Taco Bell had a unix system that I worked on here.

 

[phreakah]

CompUSSR used NT when i worked there

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: phreakah
CompUSSR used NT when i worked there

CompUSSR.. LOL

 

[tcsenter]

POS terminals use propietary ROM based operating systems and embedded microprocessors, like PDAs and other information appliances. Its the central POS management system which is PC based and typically uses off-the-shelf OS like DOS, UNIX/LINUX, or Windows.

IBM PCDOS still works fine for smaller retail sites unless you have like 30 terminals you need to serve and are driving some higher-end database/inventory management/tracking stuff.

 

[Occifer]

Originally posted by: Eli
The U-Scan machines at the Fred Meyers here in Portland use Windows 2000.. saw them rebooting a couple a while back.

The can return machines use some flavor of windows as well. I assume it would be the same one. I have seen them blue screen on many occasions.

 

[BatmanNate]

When I worked for the K marche we had IBM POS's and they ran NT4, IIRC. The RMU system was all Unix though.

 

[Corporate Thug]

my bro works at petco and they use win95 too

 

[cHeeZeFacTory]

I work at a financial aid office for my university, and they use win95. They would by brand new dell systems, and down grade the thing to win95. Jeez