So, first thing to consider for me was – is this possible? Is there any hardware out there that is mac supported?

I did a bit of digging and found that there are a wealth of barcode scanners and till drawers, but the only manufacturer of mac compatible POS printers is Star Micronics.

So what I need to do is technically possible. This is all I need to know.

Three days ago my wife placed the order for:

Star TSP143 Eco Version – Turns itself off on standby and prints less paper.
Star CB2002 cash drawer
Metrologic MS3780 Fusion Omnidirectional laser scanner with codegate

Yesterday they arrived and I’ve hooked them up:

Scanner – hooks up via USB to any mac. Doesn’t require drivers. My mac accepted it as a keyboard when I scanned something. Set it up as European encoding.

Printer – slightly more complicated. Connects, again, via USB. Requires driver that comes on a CD. 5 minutes later, we have a functioning thermal printer that can print out anything from your mac.

Cash Drawer – Essentially does nothing at all. A small wire goes from the printer to the cash drawer that will fire on request and open up the till (presumably with a small electric pulse that will release/engage a magnet)

I’m starting to get very excited now. I have my hardware. All I need now is to build my POS system from the finest technology available to a G4 macbook pro laptop.

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Filed under: Till System - @ December 14, 2010 7:38 pm

Tags: epos, hardware, pos, till