On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Martin <mar...@marcher.name> wrote: > learn the proprietary TCL[1] (not the unix tcl) which seems to come > from Verifone[2] internal programming languages.
I used to do development on these devices 10+ years ago, I think for Tranz 330, 340 and 380, for precisely this type of operation. Looks like you're using much newer hardware. That said, when last I looked (and this was 10+ years ago), Verifone had no interest in supporting non-MS platforms for their development tools. All that we had was just the software to compile and load the software onto the device. It was a DOS command line program that worked only over the serial port. I don't remember if the cable were commonly available ones (my GF worked at RadioShack at the time and I don't remember ever seeing them in the store, and I hung out there quite a bit). Though, of course, one could probably always make one. I think I got the software to work once or twice under DOSEMU at the time, but since I had NT boxes as well, I just used those. I would suspect that running the CLI stuff under WINE these days might actually work fairly well. The language itself isn't that hard. Think of it as a language that looks like assembler, but acts like awk. It's terse, with a bunch of one letter commands, usually one per line, but operates on records separated into fields. For how we were using it, it worked quite well. Your biggest concern is how much memory you have on the device (the biggest differences between the models). We usually just aimed for the lowest supported hardware, trying to keep the app small, and just used the rest of the memory to store the clockin/clockout records. It looks like you can find the language manuals online at http://www.verifone.com/technical-support.aspx . You can at least look to see if you want to go down that route. >From reading that wiki page, it looks like Verifone might have more interest in supporting Linux, since they're using it inside the machines now. But I'm not sure about the availability of tools. I think when I moved on from that job, Verifone was trying to ramp down the sales of the software. I think you'd have to talk to your current vendor about getting the appropriate software. It's not obvious to me how they're connected to Verifone and might be using TCL. Assuming the old tcload stuff would even work on this new fangled device, you might be able to find someone who is willing to pass on their older license for something cheaper than what you can get it from PCS. But I don't think there ever has been, or ever will be, an open source solution to this very niche language. mrc -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
