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Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

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    #1

    Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

    Anyone out there using Windows-98, Windows-XP or Windows-2000 who has written xbasic code to interface with this printer, you assistance would be greatly appreciated.
    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

    P.O.S. Receipt printers can be pain when working from a Windows app. I have had to do many different things over the past 15+ years in developing P.O.S. apps. What specificaly is your problem?

    Jon

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

      I get a pause before any type of printing occurs.

      To get it to print I have to kill a TSR program called WinOldAp.

      Once I kill it, the program runs beautifully until the next time I shutdown.

      This problem is under Windows-98 Second Edition for the Epson TM-U950 POS Printer.

      The TM-88III POS Printer does not even come to life. I connect the same serial cable that I use for the TM-U950 and it just won't work.

      mode com1:9600,n,8,1 is the setup for both printers.

      Any help would be greatly appreciated.

      Comment

        #4
        RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

        You might try Learnalpha.com but having said that, I'm an Alpha fan since 1982ish and have a little more to share. Alpha's Dos product was great with receipt printers. The Window's product has never, to the best of my knowledge, been able to send control codes to open a cash draw or print effectively with a pos printer. I really love the companies products but I wish they would put a little work/support into at least one or two pos printers. V5 would then real potential as a pos solution.

        Comment

          #5
          RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

          The Window's product has never, to the best of my knowledge, been able to send control codes to open a cash draw or print effectively with a pos printer. I really love the companies products but I wish they would put a little work/support into at least one or two pos printers. V5 would then real potential as a pos solution.

          Windows is supposed to remove that responsibility from developers like Alpha. And, really, one shouldn't be sending control codes to printers from a Windows app. I know it happens, but it shouldn't: The programmer tells Windows what it wants, Windows tells the device driver, the device driver tells the printer.

          Having said that, of course, if it's not working, the key may be to make some direct calls to the API. In other words, if it works for other Windows apps, find out how they do it, and build a function than makes those same calls which you can then use your A5 app.

          Comment

            #6
            RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

            Mike,

            I see you visited the Code Archive and took a look at Jim Chapman's sendstr utility. Did you find it useful in this context?

            -- tom

            Comment

              #7
              RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

              I have a customer that just bought these printers, and I have had no trouble writing "reports" to them. Here is his reply to me.

              >

              Bill.

              Comment

                #8
                RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                There was no attachment to your email response.

                Comment

                  #9
                  RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                  Not for the complexity of a realtime p.o.s. transaction with many items, discounts, markdowns and multiple tenders.

                  Too slow.

                  The printer has to work in order to get my program to utilize the features.

                  Interesting enough, we use the Progress-4GL language to develop other P.O.S. applications and none of these issues has ever come up.

                  Comment

                    #10
                    RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                    Mike,

                    Is Progress running in a DOS box, or is it a Windows application ?

                    -- tom

                    Comment

                      #11
                      RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                      Mike,

                      I visited the Progress web site, and see that it's availabe for several different platforms. However, I'm not sure it's a fair comparison if that's what you meant to imply.

                      -- tom

                      Comment

                        #12
                        RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                        Mike...I have concluded that when developing an app that runs under Windows that using a parallel printer works best with much less coding required (virtually none).

                        What is WinOldAp?

                        Sometimes you have to get creative in defining paper size and the like, but generally not. Also, with STAR printers there are Windows drivers that work well that I have setup for.

                        Comment

                          #13
                          RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                          Mike,

                          No doubt you're aware of this, but Epson has created a special control font system for talking to POS printers through Windows. Here's the link:

                          http://pos.epson.com/pointofsale/windrivers.html

                          Don't know if it will help or not, but thought I'd mention it.


                          - tom

                          Comment

                            #14
                            RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                            No Tom, that is not what I was implying.

                            There are both excellent development application languages, and each one has it's rightful place in the business world.

                            Don't take it personally, I think it is great and have dedicated some of my employees to developing quality products for the Canadian Marketplace.

                            Comment

                              #15
                              RE: Epson Point-of-Sale Printer TM-88III

                              I too have developed with the STAR Micronics line of POS printers and have had no issues.

                              I did get the Window Drivers downloaded from Epson and will be trying these sometime today.

                              I'll post my successes and failures.

                              Thanks

                              Comment

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