Keyhut POS: Free Point-of-Sale Software for DOS

http://keyhut.com/pos.htm

by jandeboevrie • 7 years ago

362 157 7 years ago

keyhut.com

chews• 7 years ago

Thank you for posting this. While the software creator might be eccentric, the software works great.

mehhh2• 7 years ago

Core POS is another fun one to check out (it even does credit, debit & EBT)

https://www.core-pos.com/

joshmn2• 7 years ago

There is something much more charming and interesting about KeyPOS. Not that one is better than the other, or more up-to-date, but... KeyPOS is written in QBASIC, looks like it's from the 90s (it is), and the author is self-deprecating but not so much that it's annoying.

... plus it's not making you install a web server and isn't an Electron app. I thought we all collectively hated Electron.

CORE is primarily a web-based, PHP+MySQL application. There are a few C# pieces most of which are Mono-compatible.
This is an ElectronJS based app that turns CORE's lane into a desktop app. Apache, MySQL, etc are all still required. This app just takes the place of the web browser. Why?

edoceo• 7 years ago

I'll guess for them, cause I do it for our POS but it's necessary to be "on the box" to control serial ports and print w/o prompt. Think scanners and receipt printers.

mehhh2• 7 years ago

KeyPOS has quite a bit of charm, and I wish it were more extensible (eg: free software) like Core POS.

The Electron app part is new, I know they were using Firefox with a few XUL extensions in 2015. There probably wasn't much choice beyond Electron once XUL was killed, and their PHP codebase is one of the nicest I have ever worked on.

Mathnerd314• 7 years ago

PHP codebase, worse site than this one. Front page gives an error about a Google Maps API key. I don't know why they have a website at all rather than just redirecting to the GitHub pages.

cmroanirgo• 7 years ago

Love the guy's almost anti tech stance. From his fb page:

I am apparently no longer fit to live on this planet.

Over the last month or so I have received some disturbing emails. When summarized they say that they love the POS software. It does everything they want and more, they could not be more pleased with it and if it was not free they would have been more than happy to pay for it. However they are going to have to dump it and go find a different POS program that will probably not be as perfect for them as DHPOS and will have to pay for it to boot.

The problem is that their younger employees hate it. Either they cannot figure out how to use it because it requires input from the keyboard or they are appalled because when they swipe the screen nothing happens.

Cry me a river.

Apparently smartphone use makes one useless for any other function which is yet another reason to avoid them like the plague that they are. I am increasingly distressed that this page has become an endless rant about smartphones but it does seem as though they have become ubiquitous with the only exception to my knowledge being my pants. In the last month my only co-conspiracy relative has gone over to the dark side and I am now alone.

Over the last week I built a cart to hold folding tables (photo below) for the 6 Corners Association that did not in any way require the use of a smartphone, no swiping required, no cat videos attached, and my attention was focused on reality as evidenced by the fact that I still have possession of all of my fingers. Plus I had buckets of fun to boot. I am quite proud of it and since it is real I have no worries of someone accidentally deleting it or of it being hacked and remotely being sent to scoot down Milwaukee Avenue as a hazard to the populace.

I find real life to be endlessly fascinating, plus if I leave my flip phone at home or the battery dies or the phone gets crushed by a plummeting cement block, I’m good, not a problem. I know where I am (since I never left reality) and I can get anywhere I need to go since I pretty much know where everything I might need is. If I need to contact someone I have a printed list of phone numbers in my wallet. However when I am with someone else and their smartphone dies the look of panic on their face is alarming. I try to console them.

So please do not even think of holding a tag-day to purchase a smartphone for me because I am more than fine without one and it would only make me wonder why you hate me.

https://facebook.com/daleharrispos/photos/a.408929929488156/...

Meph504• 7 years ago

Honestly, He sounds pretty typical for a lot of late 50s early 60 years old programmers I know. Their relationships with machines has been very different, as has their relationship to the world. I find a lot of them, dislike the way the world has changed in regards to computers, and honestly I can see a lot of what they are saying, albeit with less angst and zeal.

Jaruzel4• 7 years ago

I haven't even hit fifty yet (31 months to go!) and I already feel that way. My first 'proper' job when I was ~20 was as junior sysadmin on a large DEC VAXCluster[1] which are mainframe-like, and over the past three decades of working with computers, I too am very sad at how commoditised it has all become. Programming is mainly now just a process of bolting existing libraries together with no real idea of how everything works, hardware is now shrunk down to effectively be like magic, and unless you constantly jump aboard the latest fad, you are considered obsolete. The fun and discover-ability of the whole thing has completely gone. It's a real shame.

[1] http://www.jaruzel.com/blog/dont-screw-up-a-vaxcluster-tale

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 7 years ago

I'm only just about to be closer to 40 than I am 30 and I feel kinship with these people. Almost every day I see something going on in the industry or on HN or even just whatever horrors the Windows Update team have unleashed recently and need to go outside and shout at clouds for about 20 minutes.

If you find me being less than pleasant on this site, it's usually because I'm talking to someone who is making me feel this way. It's like the modern technology landscape has somehow forgotten the wisdom that was built up over generations. It's infuriating.

kevin_thibedeau• 7 years ago

The problem is that palm sized supercomputers are ubiquitous but they are all burdened with unnecessarily slow software.

dvfjsdhgfv• 7 years ago

He seems to be a fun guy with a really positive attitude.

Today was my regular 4 month visit to see Doctor G. Due to unanimous threats of death from all the doctors I see, in the last 4 months I have managed to lose 25 pounds. (I am sure that they are here somewhere but I am not going to try to find them.)
She was very happy with me and like many other folks asked me what diet plan I was using. I replied that it is one of my own creation that I call the “Move more, eat less” diet. This basically consists of taking a long walk every day, go work in the garage and not sit at the computer all the time, and not putting anything in my mouth that I would actually want to eat, ie, if it tastes really good then I should not be eating it.

Zee2• 7 years ago

Due to unanimous threats of death from all the doctors I see

Wow, this sounds a lot like paranoid schizophrenia. I hope this guy is alright.

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 7 years ago

I replied that it is one of my own creation that I call the “Move more, eat less” diet.

Christ, I'm starting to think this guy and I might be related.

al2o3cr2• 7 years ago

The funniest thing imaginable would be for this guy to run into a mainframe dev and get lambasted for "OMG I can't believe your software needs one of those toddler computers, surely a 3270 is good enough"

cat199• 7 years ago

capability maturity model: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model):

    Initial (chaotic, ad hoc, individual heroics) - the starting point for use of a new or undocumented repeat process.
    Repeatable - the process is at least documented sufficiently such that repeating the same steps may be attempted.
    Defined - the process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process
    Capable - the process is quantitatively managed in accordance with agreed-upon metrics.
    Efficient - process management includes deliberate process optimization/improvement.

amish use of technology: (http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-technology/):

"Amish churches regulate use of technology through a set of oral guidelines known as the Ordnung. ...

In some cases, after careful evaluation, consensus may develop around a particular technology, which may lead to its being adopted by the church district and incorporated into the Ordnung.:

so: takeaway: amish are at highest CMM, and actually very technologically advanced by CMM metric..

joshmn2• 7 years ago

This is incredibly charming and almost makes me want to start a lemonade stand or something.

okcwarrior• 7 years ago

"Error #2 was that there are people all over the earth who are writing tax laws, they do not talk to each other, and they are all INSANE."

He has a very valid point here!

cygned• 7 years ago

One could say the software looks dated, but you would be surprised how many of such applications are still in use today. I see those a lot at furniture shops and large stores. I bought a Mercedes-Benz last week and the dealer’s computer was logged into an IBM mainframe running z/OS and COBOL/JPL.

I find it interesting to spot those types of systems in commodity situations.

skrebbel2• 7 years ago

Lots of such "dated" software can be used much more productively than modern GUI or web based software.

Most oldschool DOS-y business software is very keyboard driven, so the learning curve is much steeper than that of your average web app. But once you're there, and really it's just a few hours of learning to hit the right keys while your experienced colleague is training you up, then it's super fast.

There's no web page loading times. Click ... Wait .... Click ... Etc ...

Inputs are properly tab indexed, because that's the only way to navigate between them.

Every keyboard hit has instant feedback

No time wasted mousing around.

Look, mouse/touch driven UIs are great for discoverability, and web based UIs are great for deliverability, but neither of those are super important when all users of the software are expected to use it a lot, and use it from a known amount of places (eg branches of a retail chain).

Of course there's nothing preventing web based UIs from supporting the same speed and productivity, but I know of few examples that actually do this.

I love web based software and I make it for a living, but I wish UX designers for line of business applications would take a few more hints from the nineties. If you can assume that a new user gets a few hours of on-the-job training from a colleague, then that wildly changes the assumptions underlying your UX design.

johannes1234321• 7 years ago

Not only is the response fast, but also don't you have to look at the keys or for some entries even the screen. https://youtu.be/oOjnpOyUzS0

For a while I always said, that I preferred a counter for getting tickets (train or something) as the trained clerk is faster on the keyboard than me on the touchscreen of a ticket machine. Nowadays however clerks on counters have to push the mouse more and more and seemingly have less training.

holri2• 7 years ago

Of course there's nothing preventing web based UIs from supporting the same speed and productivity, but I know of few examples that actually do this.

Can you give a few of those examples? What must be done to accomplish this?

ecthiender2• 7 years ago

This comment has some good insights. Actually a lot of "business" software were like that in the 90s and early 00s. They were optimized for productivity of the user and not necessarily aesthetics of appearance or ease of use (well, trade-off). Even old version of excel etc. were designed like that. Unfortunately modern web software has such high importance on making it eye-candy.

jacquesm• 7 years ago

I knew someone working on a system like that who could 'type ahead' a couple of screens worth because the layout had not changed in a decade, it 'just worked' and the system had trouble keeping up with the user because of that. Very impressive.

stakhanov6• 7 years ago

...actually, I think there may even be a positive effect on the way your customers perceive you if you use a POS that looks like it's from the IBM Mainframe / DOS era.

This is because they are seen among businesses which were early adopters of electronic POS systems (usually linked to electronic ERP) which, back in the day, would have been a huge chunk of cash that they would have needed to spend on something that wasn't a core function of their business. And they're still around today. So that has got to be a successful business by somebody's definition of success.

So, in a sneaky kind of way, you can pretend to be one of them by setting up a vintage- and corporate-looking system like that, even when you are a brand-new and unproven small business.

al2o3cr2• 7 years ago

OTOH, if I go to a store and they're still using that sort of system I also think "here's a place that used to innovate, but gave up about 20 years ago"

Crinus5• 7 years ago

This reminds me of my aunt's ex who is an accountant telling me in mid-2000s that his peers wouldn't take seriously any program that run in Windows because to them all the graphics gave a 'toy' feel. Apparently pretty much all of the accounting software either ran in DOS or were Windows programs that ran in the console as to give that 'serious DOS look'. I also remember him receiving software updates via floppy disks in sealed envelopes from one of these companies.

I wonder what those companies making those programs are doing nowadays.

discreditable• 7 years ago

When I bought a Toyota 4 years ago I was surprised to see the dealer using a separate DOS machine for the contract. I was even more surprised when he printed the contract to a dot matrix printer.

pete838• 7 years ago

I admin a Toyota dealership currently that still uses a very terminal looking ERP with dot matrix OkiData printers. It's amazing how quickly everyone zips around in it without a mouse. I believe it's called Reynolds and Reynolds auto retailing. Does everything a full service dealership needs, from buying used cars to selling parts and body work.

ozzmotik2• 7 years ago

when I worked at the Sears call center, they tracked all orders and service requests through what appeared to be a DOS based service (ironically also named DOS for delivery/order system) and as I recall another one called NPOS that was used to look up items, check availability, etc.

copperx• 7 years ago

Can this run on a Raspberry Pi via DOS emulation?

sneak• 7 years ago

I’m sure that would work fine.

jacobush2• 7 years ago

http://keyhut.com/64bit.htm follow these instructions except you are running a Raspi, not Win64.

thorum• 7 years ago

You could probably get this running in a browser via emulation with one of those JavaScript DOS clones.

From there, you could wrap it in an Electron window and write some nodejs glue code to let it interface with hardware and the file system.

That would make it possible to rig up some kind of cloud storage for the database files and maybe start to think about getting it running on phones with React Native.

You could sell the iOS app for a small price like $20, or a subscription model with in app purchases. That would help to fund a redesign of the website to a more modern single page app approach.

jmspring• 7 years ago

Not everything should be wrapped in electron :)

ecthiender2• 7 years ago

Maybe the commenter was just being sarcastic. But I agree it's hard to tell.

_pmf_2• 7 years ago

Electron is not the hero we deserve, ...

Jaruzel4• 7 years ago

Or, y'know, leave it as it is. As DOS app it is available almost instantly from boot and it's designed specifically for any PC, even ones that are over 30 years old. It's probably faster than any rich GUI version. It's also FREE. It looks like it does what it says on the tin, and for many people, that's all that is important.

There are MANY phone POS apps. I do not see why this POS app needs to be re-vectored to also run on phones. I don't want to be ageist about this, but just because something is old, that doesn't mean it's no longer useful.

namdnay• 7 years ago

I think you missed the joke!

Vogtinator• 7 years ago

I'm not sure whether this comment is sarcastic or not, which is sad.

VMG• 7 years ago

People writing comments on Adderall makes this even more difficult

slovenlyrobot• 7 years ago

Pretty certain parent commenter is fully aware of what they're doing. :) It's a masterpiece

(at least, I hope they're fully aware!)

FpUser• 7 years ago

Leave it alone. It is perfect. ;)

_pmf_2• 7 years ago

This goes so completely against the spirit of what the author is doing that it would be amazing in its own right.

AlexDragusin4• 7 years ago

I'm so looking forward for batch files wrapped in Electron.

simonh• 7 years ago

Beautiful. I had my suspicions with the first sentence, but it's the last paragraph that really gives you away.

Nextgrid• 7 years ago

I am disappointed he didn't include ads and Facebook integration.

amiga-workbench• 7 years ago

Thank you, you've put my blood pressure up.

princekolt• 7 years ago

The fact I, or most people, can't tell whether this is a sarcastic comment or not says a lot about the state of the software industry at the moment...

floatingatoll• 7 years ago

It’s very kind of you to offer to do this for the author, but I suspect they would rather just not deal with the complexity of all that, given that they specialize in DOS. If you do succeed at doing this, I’m sure they will appreciate a 100% revenue donation though!

bluedino3• 7 years ago

You are describing how a few people make a healthy living in the terminal->web market!

barnabee• 7 years ago

The real joke is that running this in DOSBox in JavaScript in Electron in a VM etc. etc. would probably still be an order of magnitude faster and more efficient for a trained user than half the [web] apps that would like to replace it.

KindOne2• 7 years ago

If you use the software you can email him and ask for his Capterra review link. Capterra is giving out $10 USD gift cards for reviews on his software.

ritty• 7 years ago

I love the website. Just last weekend I made a reader for my company's forum with absolutely no CSS. It's just plain text and a total of 38 lines of code written by me, which includes db connection parameters. Some people I showed it to wanted it to be the real forum. It was fast as hell and mobile and tty (lynx) friendly but didn't allow any sort of login, posting, or posts read tracking, so not really usable. Fun though. I love super basic things. Another really basic site I use is called Hacker News. Heard of it? :)

AlexDragusin4• 7 years ago

I encourage people as much as I can to consider doing sites to use as little resources as needed.

Shameless plug, I recently put up the Leanternet directory of lean internet sites, you might like to see more of these kind of sites and the Leanternet principles at https://www.leanternet.com

dickeytk• 7 years ago

The second button, “read the leanternet principles” is broken badly into 2 lines on my iphone

Crinus5• 7 years ago

I like the idea in principle, though in practice i noticed that there are a bunch of similar lists and all of them tend to have only 6-7 sites (half of them being the same).

I think there needs to be a more automated way of finding and sharing these sites, perhaps some browser extension?

michaelanckaert• 7 years ago

Good to read this, I call this the Spartan Webdesign and describe it here[0].

[0] https://www.sinax.be/blog/general/guidelines-for-spartan-web...

sidpatil• 7 years ago

There's also http://wiby.me, a search engine for finding lightweight pages and sites.

excursionist• 7 years ago

I wish hackernews gave some kind of notification when someone replies to your comment.

ThePadawan• 7 years ago

The companion site http://hnreplies.com/ covers that use case.

JetSpiegel• 7 years ago

https://github.com/edavis/go-hnrss

I use HNRSS to subscribe to replies to myself.

Bonus: Stalk other users (subscribe to their submissions). Subscribing to their comments is just creepy.

okl• 7 years ago

Like this one? https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

ozzmotik2• 7 years ago

oh i did the same thing years ago when I was working at HostGator except I wrote an ncurses front-end to their live chat support system. granted i was the only person who used it (and it was an extension of a toy project i made that essentially had bots with random names connect and send garbage to see if that would propagate out to support chat and see how many people would notice). but either way it's always fun to build a minimalist interface to things (especially when you don't have the code directly for them and have to reverse engineer stuff!)

isoprophlex• 7 years ago

Is this the templeOS version of a POS system?!

I love it.

onesmallcoin• 7 years ago

I think mental diversity in the workplace is something to be encouraged not ostracized. Personally I find both Terry and Dale to be great, well informed reads despite a bit of what someone else labeled self depreciating behaviour.

icebraining3• 7 years ago

I'd say it's just a typical 90s software project that kept going until today.

KindOne2• 7 years ago

Discussion on reddit (3 months ago): https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/byuw77/so_this_is...

mike_d• 7 years ago

The photos of it in use in stores are adorable and must be heartwarming for the developer

http://keyhut.com/posphoto.htm

gattilorenz3• 7 years ago

The one in Indonesia is not only using a CRT, but they have one of those "protectors" on. Blast from the past, I never understood what they were supposed to do in practice.

geowwy• 7 years ago

I think they help with glare.

ztjio• 7 years ago

Anti-glare

tyingq2• 7 years ago

That one appears anti-glare, but there are also privacy oriented ones that prevent reading the screen from the side.

misterman0• 7 years ago

From the photos it seems Freeman's Luggage are having some technical problems with their POS.

pjc503• 7 years ago

I do like the blue background choice, which I will forever associate first with Borland Turbo C which used yellow as the foreground colour.

It was also used by Wordstar and a few other programs, as it was the only readable background colour that wasn't black. A few people had early "paperwhite" laptop LCDs that preferred black-on-white.

jandeboevrie2• 7 years ago

After the reddit explosion I emailed the guy and donated $5. He personally replied, seems to be a cool lad. So if you can spare some cash, you'll make him very happy.

l3git• 7 years ago

at prodigy.net? Loving it.

cies2• 7 years ago

I cannot find the source code, or a license. It's "free" (gratis) software, but is it FreeSoftware?

scandox• 7 years ago

SOURCE CODE Sorry, but I do not release the source code for any of my software. This is particularly true for the Cash Register program.
The Cash Register program. has many things that must be hidden like the passwords and PIN numbers. It also has things that users must not be able to change like sales and tax amounts and transaction numbers. These things could easily be changed by anyone who has the source code and anyone with the source code could write a program that would change the hidden things and then release it on the internet making my program useless.

It's all in FAQ. I don't really get the whole thing about the PINs/Passwords, but I'm guessing there's some logic in it.

The funny thing is he explicitly explains to people how to modify the binary with a Hex Editor to change language strings...

cies2• 7 years ago

Thanks for the digging. I would steer clear of this project. I expect there to be opensource alternatives that score better on openess.

simmons• 7 years ago

I'm a bit of a computer history buff, and dig around through old software archives from time to time. It seems to me that developers back in the 80's (at least in the PC / home computer world) were quite possessive of their source code, even for hobbyist projects that they gave away for free. It might seem a little odd to us today, although perhaps they had some rational motivation (e.g. hopes of productizing it or selling the IP later). So I'm not surprised that this program is also closed source, with some vague integrity/security reasons offered.

I say this with all due respect to the developer, who of course is free to distribute his software however he would like. It's a very cool project, and I often wish we could see a resurgence of such simplicity and distraction-free UX. :)

stakhanov6• 7 years ago

Well, that sounds a bit like "security by obscurity". That ain't good.

gattilorenz3• 7 years ago

Ugh, talk about feature creep and planned obsolescence. From version 7.0c you need a 200 MB or larger drive for autobackup and Win95+ or later for mailing/FTPing autoreports.

Now I need to replace my perfectly functional 386DX-40 with one of those fancy 486. Hopefully a Cyrix CX-486DRX2 will do and I can avoid the expense of a new motherboard...

:^)

tssva• 7 years ago

There is not necessarily a need to upgrade your hardware. Minimum CPU requirement for Windows 95 is a 386DX.

Zardoz84• 7 years ago

a 386 at 40 MHz run Windows 95 perfectly

yjftsjthsd-h• 7 years ago

I'm actually surprised at that; I know FTP was around in that era, and SMTP is a simple as throwing a simple text format over TCP.

jeroenhd• 7 years ago

Probably Winsock-related. Sockets required third party support in DOS and required an extension program on Win3.1x, but Win95 standardised them in the OS API. So, if you as a programmer want to do sockets programming without obscure old software that probably lacks documentation, Windows 95 is the way to go.

You can read about the history of winsock here: https://tangentsoft.net/wskfaq/articles/history.html

boomlinde2• 7 years ago

You can't throw a simple text format over TCP if there's no TCP or IP or Ethernet to throw it over!

It probably relies Windows because it provides a sane abstraction over a large set of network card drivers, and a system-wide TCP/IP stack.

vectorEQ• 7 years ago

this brings back memories :') love it. thanks for sharing.

kensai• 7 years ago

The site of this software looks like it is up since early 1990s... :D

skissane3• 7 years ago

Our six year old is having fun playing with this app right now. Setting up a pretend shop.

Topgamer7• 7 years ago

If you want to introduce them to more DOS stuff. When I was young my daycare had a DOS computer with Space Quest III and Where in the world is carmen san diego. You can probably get freeware versions of those.

skissane3• 7 years ago

I’ll try those.

He loves Commander Keen. He has dozens of Keen mods installed in DOSBox. He even tries building his own with a level editor (Abiathar)

b0bj4ckz0n• 7 years ago

How did your six year old find this software?

skissane3• 7 years ago

I had to install it for him and show him what to do. (I was just kind of guessing what to do.)

His shop sold all kind of random things - everything from hamburgers to nuclear weapons...

Some of the screens, e.g. the stock table maintenance, the controls are a bit hairy (e.g. you have to press control-arrow keys to move to another set of fields), he got a bit frustrated at that when I wasn’t there to help him. (I had to go help his little sister.)

vortico• 7 years ago

Along the same lines as a program running on lightweight DOS, is it possible (or common) to build a Linux "distribution" for the sake of running a single TTY program? How fast would it boot, and how reliable would it be? (To avoid being called into work because a brief power outage "bricked" the POS.) Linux would have the advantage of working on modern PCs with modern hardware like touch screens, USB scanners/printers, etc.

Or, say I want to boot directly into a video game console emulator with Linux with 0 additional steps. How would I do that?

Crinus5• 7 years ago

When Linux finishes initializing itself it runs /sbin/init (it is one path it tries among a bunch of others, though i think /sbin/init is the first it attempts to run - you can override that with the init= kernel parameter at boot time, e.g. in GRUB). So just make /sbin/init be your binary and make sure it can run by itself without any other initialization and it should work.

etatoby• 7 years ago

In fact, init=/bin/bash is the traditional way to gain root into a system for which you have forgotten the password. Assuming the filesystem is not encrypted.

pjc503• 7 years ago

While you can just make it launch a program instead of /sbin/init, you may be surprised at the results, because it won't mount any of your filesystems, setup the network, etc. So you want systemd/sysvinit (according to taste) to run first, which will take the normal amount of time to boot.

The cleaner way of doing this is through "inittab". Normally this starts a program called "getty" on the console which provides the login prompt etc. That's what you want to override. It will also restart your program every time it quits.

(Less normal options include "put your program in the initrd", which is viable if it's very small and does all the setup itself, or "write something that runs directly from the UEFI loader")

juliangoldsmith2• 7 years ago

Another less normal option would simply be to make /sbin/init a shell script.

Instead of trying to detect hardware, network, and all, you could just hardcode everything. If you're working with a standardized set of hardware, that would most likely be simpler than anything else.

detuur• 7 years ago

Or just stick with a lightweight init like OpenRC. It's used in Alpine and as such also in Docker containers. It stands out in how little, really, it does.

Also, you can use /etc/passwd to set the shell for every user. If you set this to a non-shell application, you essentially limit this user's session to only ever running that program. So a very lightweight, but networked system could set up sshd in innittab and then create a user with your single-user application set as the shell, and maybe an admin user that actually has access to a proper shell as a back-up.

There actually was a blog post I read not too long ago about a sysadmin who detailed the security challenges of running an open SSH server in which passwd set the shell to a game. There was a little bit more to it to get it completely secure. Unfortunately can't find it right now.

jandeboevrie2• 7 years ago

For your last question, here's something I wrote some time ago to do just that: https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Run_software_on_tty1_console_...

jedimastert• 7 years ago

IIRC, Chrome OS started as that very concept, although it's kind of evolved since then.

bluedino3• 7 years ago

One of my first jobs in IT was replacing POS terminals at a large sporting goods chain.

Netware server, DOS terminals, DOS drive mappings and networking fun stuff and it was in the days of Windows 2000 so a lot of the MSCE's didn't know anything about DOS drivers etc. Or they, were smart enough to pretend that they didn't so they didn't get stuck with this assignment.

nobleach2• 7 years ago

Oh man, Netware in the era of Windows 2000!! I had a few of these hold outs. Many of my clients were on WinNT 3.5 with a Netware 3.1 server. Getting the windows admins to understand loading NLMs and using the different console tools was "fun". I only got to toy with one Netware 4.11. And that was just using NwAdmin95 (so the joys of learning NDS). I had it set up in my home lab too as I was planning on getting my CCNA... then I moved to a Windows only place and worked on getting them to adopt Linux.

bluedino3• 7 years ago

Yea, we had 'team red' (novell) vs 'team blue' (MS)

I was team Linux. So team black was they ended up naming it.

devlim• 7 years ago

i thought it's an open source project

ASalazarMX• 7 years ago

The FAQ clearly states it's closed source: http://keyhut.com/faq.htm#source

"Sorry, but I do not release the source code for any of my software. This is particularly true for the Cash Register program.

The Cash Register program. has many things that must be hidden like the passwords and PIN numbers. It also has things that users must not be able to change like sales and tax amounts and transaction numbers. These things could easily be changed by anyone who has the source code and anyone with the source code could write a program that would change the hidden things and then release it on the internet making my program useless".

WoodenChair• 7 years ago

This is really cool to come across, but you're not getting the whole experience if you don't read the author's "Why" page: http://keyhut.com/why.htm

glancast• 7 years ago

love it, also the chat link at the bottom: http://keyhut.com/chat.htm

kup0• 7 years ago

As I've grown older (mid 30s now), I've noticed over time that I have begun to strongly prefer lightweight, minimal, focused, efficient things in all sorts of areas of life, including software.

For a while I was in the "lol can't believe this business still uses a DOS program!" camp... but that knee-jerk reaction has faded and I'm completely on the other end now. I'm not anti new technologies, but I am skeptical that they are ultimately always better than what preceded them.

There is so much we have that is "new" that feels far worse than what we had before. Smart TVs, bloated/slow software, etc.

The design side of my brain still feels like even just a few lines of CSS could probably spruce up the site for this software (just in terms of colors/font), but even then, is it really necessary? He likes it the way it is, why not just keep it that way.

Keyhut POS: Free Point-of-Sale Software for DOS

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