POS Terminal

Overview

A point-of-sale terminal is the workstation a cashier rings sales up on. Unlike a simple electronic register, it is a full computer: a quad-core SoC runs a POS application on top of Android or Linux, holds the product catalogue, and talks to back-office and payment systems over the network. The cashier interacts through the Operator Touchscreen, a large colour LCD bonded to a capacitive touch overlay, while the shopper reads the running total on a separate Customer Display facing the other way.

The whole unit sits on a Stand & Base with a weighted base and a tilt arm, so it stays put on the counter and the screen angle suits the operator. Everything is sequenced by the Main Logic Board, which pairs the application processor with a peripheral microcontroller that watches the card reader, printer, and ports. Power comes from an internal AC-DC Power Supply.

Three peripherals turn a tablet-like computer into a till. The Thermal Receipt Printer is a built-in direct-thermal unit that issues receipts. The Card Reader captures magstripe and chip cards for payment. The I/O Port Cluster cluster exposes USB and serial for a barcode scanner, scale, or cash drawer, plus LAN for the network.

How it works

A transaction begins on the Operator Touchscreen: the cashier taps items, or scans them through a USB scanner plugged into the I/O Port Cluster. The POS app on the Main Logic Board looks each item up in the catalogue, adds it to the cart, and pushes the new subtotal to both the operator screen and the rear Customer Display so the shopper can follow along.

At payment, the customer swipes, inserts, or taps a card at the Card Reader. The reader captures the card data on its secure board and hands it to the application processor, which runs the transaction against the acquirer over the network. On approval, the controller streams the receipt to the Thermal Receipt Printer, a stepper advances the platen one dot-line at a time while the thermal head pulses its heater array to mark the paper, and fires the cash-drawer kick line on the I/O panel if a drawer is connected. The completed sale is logged and synced to the back office.