BETA test version 6.37

[Dale Harris]

New features are...

"Rounding" will have a new option to round the sale to the nearest 10¢. WARNING! If you currently have the the program set to round to "1" you will have to return to the "Rounding" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to reset this feature.

From the main POS menu pressing [F9] will put the program to sleep. This may help reduce the system resources used by the POS program while it is asleep. Pressing any key will then awaken the program.

If your computer runs straight DOS or Windows versions 3.1 to '98 you may set the POLE display output to "DIRECT ACCESS". This means that the POLE.EXE program will not be needed to run the pole display. This is good because POLE.EXE is Windows software and will not run on a DOS only machine. However direct serial port access will not work from the POS program if your computer runs Windows versions after '98 so then you will have to use POLE.EXE.

The POS program will now be able to sell time. Actually the POS program was always able to sell time it just did not keep track of the time being sold. Now it will. By pressing [DELETE] from the main POS menu or from a sale that has no items that have been rung up you will start a TIMER.EXE program that you can either set to display up to 51 timers displaying the start time and the elapsed time for up to 51 thingies or you can set it so that you can print out a start time and then later re-enter the start time and it will print out the elapsed time. The first method works well if you have something like a cyber cafe where you sell time on the computers and the second method works better if you have a 500 car parking garage.

There are many settings to the timer program. You can set a minimum time period to charge for. You can set a base time period of 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or 60 minutes. For example you can charge 1.00 per 15 minutes. You can round to the nearest whole time period, or round up to the next.

If you choose not to round then the program will give you the the exact time to within 1/1000th of the chosen time period. For example if you are using the time period of 15 minutes and a person uses 2 hours and 38 minutes that would come out to 6.533 time periods. When you ring this up in the program you would enter 6.533 as the "Pieces"

Remember to first create a new folder on your hard drive and to copy the contents of your current POS folder to the new one. Then download the POS637B9.ZIP file to the new folder and unzip it. Now you can play with the new version in the new folder and not have to worry about screwing up your "real" register in the old folder.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

Remember the whole point of this is for you to report back with your opinions of the new features and anything else about this test version.

[Dale Harris]

I am apparently losing my mind. A while back (months?) I was working on a new feature for someone I cannot remember and I got half way finished with it and then totally forgot about it. While changing the version numbers in 6.37b1 I stumbled upon something and said to myself, "What the heck is this?" Then I remembered the feature I was working on way back when.

So I took time out to finish it today and add it to the current BETA 2 version of 6.37

The LOOKUP.EXE program is used on a separate computer out on the sales floor. Its purpose is that customers can use the program to lookup items to check their regular price, sale price, and inventory. Up to know you could only use the regular stock number to look up an item.

The new feature is that you can now set the LOOKUP.EXE program to use either the regular stock number or the vendor stock number or both.

If you set "regular only" the program will act just like it has in the past.

If you set "vendor only" then the program will look up your input only in the column of vendor stock numbers.

If you set the program to check both then it will first look up your input in the list of regular stock numbers and then the column of vendor stock numbers.

When you look up vendor stock numbers the program will do an INSTR search meaning that you only have to enter a portion of the vendor stock number and then the program will match the first stock number that contains your input. If it is not the one you are looking for it will then find additional matches until it finds the one you want.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

Robert Nel and Andrew have pointed out a couple of problems with the "timer" feature printing. I think I have solved these problems in version 6.37 BETA 2.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

In version 6.37 BETA 4 there have been several changes.

First of all you must now press [DELETE] from either the main menu of the POS.EXE program or from a sale to go to the "timer" feature. If the sale has any items already rung into the sale then you cannot access the timer feature.

In the timer feature you can now go to "Set up" to enter a stock number. This stock number must be the number that is in the stock table and is used to ring up time. If you enter the proper "time" stock number then after stopping a timer and returning to the main program the time will automatically be entered into the sale. If no stock number is entered then you must manually enter the time into a sale when you return. If the entered stock number does not exist in the stock table then you will receive an "Invalid stock number" error when you return.

One previous problem was if time was started late in the day and then the stop time was after midnight. Stop time would then be less than start time and elapsed time would be a negative value. This has been fixed, however you are still limited to a 24 hour period. Time periods that exceed 24 hours will give possibly very weird results.

Since the above new features have made several changes in the POS.EXE program I need it beta tested both when using the "timer" feature and when not using the "timer" feature.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

Today I have added a new feature to the timer program to allow you to print or not print the timer receipts.

Tonight I moved the setup from the timer program to the POSCONFG.EXE program where it should have been alll along. After all you do not want the cashiers to be able to change the setup.

This is the last feature tweek for version 6.37. If there are no bug fixes it will be released this weekend.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

Well it seems that there were some problems with the "timer" feature when the cash register was set up to go to the next sale after the previous sale instead of back to the main menu. I have fixed that.

The use of the [DELETE] key to launch the timer feature was also a poor choice so it has been changed to the [END] key in BETA 6.

And since I just cannot seem to stop myself from adding just one little thing more to the program it will now print the price of the time unit on the "start time" receipt. It gets the price from the stock table using the stock number that you entered into the "timer" setup. This means that if you change the price in the stock table that it will also change in the "start time" receipt.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

This will probably be released this weekend so now is the time to post some comments.

[Dale Harris]

In version 637 BETA 7 I have changed the program so that if you are returning to the POS.EXE program file from another file it will not ask if you are running APRINT and when you go to the POSCONFG.EXE program it will no longer automatically lock the register.

This version has been released. Download from...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

I am now updating the user's guides, updating the email list of registered users and getting ready to release this thing on Sunday unless there is a bug report.

But no more features for version 6.37. (Dale puts fingers in ears) Nananananananananananananananananananananananananananananana
nanananananananananananananananananananananananananananananan
I can't hear you!!!!!!!!!!!