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JavaPOS (short for Java for Point of Sale Devices), is a standard for interfacing
point of sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...
(POS) software, written in
Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
, with the specialized hardware peripherals typically used to create a point-of-sale system. The advantages are reduced POS terminal costs, platform independence, and reduced administrative costs. JavaPOS was based on a Windows POS device driver standard known as OPOS. JavaPOS and OPOS have since been folded into a common UnifiedPOS standard.


Types of hardware

JavaPOS can be used to access various types of POS hardware. A few of the hardware types that can be controlled using JavaPOS are * POS printers (for receipts, check printing, and document
franking Franking comprises all devices, markings, or combinations thereof ("franks") applied to mails of any class which qualifies them to be postally serviced. Types of franks include postage stamps (both adhesive and printed on postal stationery, whethe ...
) * Magnetic stripe readers (MSRs) * Magnetic ink character recognition readers (MICRs) * Barcode scanners/readers * Cash drawers * Coin dispensers * Pole displays * PINpads * Electronic scales


Parts

In addition to referring to the standard, the term JavaPOS is used to refer to the
application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...
(API). The JavaPOS standard includes definitions for "Control Objects" and "Service Objects". The POS software communicates with the Control Objects. The Control Objects load and communicate with appropriate Service Objects. The Service Objects are sometimes referred to as the "JavaPOS drivers."


Control objects

The POS software interacts with the control object to control the hardware device. A common JavaPOS library is published by the standards organization with an implementation of the Control Objects of the JavaPOS standard.


Service objects

Each hardware vendor is responsible for providing Service Objects, or "JavaPOS drivers" for the hardware they sell. Depending on the vendor, drivers may be available that can communicate over
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...
,
RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such as a compu ...
,
RS-485 RS-485, also known as TIA-485(-A) or EIA-485, is a standard, originally introduced in 1983, defining the electrical characteristics of drivers and receivers for use in serial communications systems. Electrical signaling is balanced, and Telecomm ...
, or even an
Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
connection. The hardware vendors will typically create JavaPOS drivers that will work with Windows. The majority of vendors will also create drivers for at least one flavor of Linux, but not as many. Since there is not nearly as much marketshare to capture for Apple computers used as POS systems, only a few JavaPOS drivers would be expected to work with Mac OS X. (And those would be more likely due to happy circumstance rather than careful design.)


Historical background

The committee that initiated JavaPOS development consisted of
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...
,
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
, and NCR. The first meeting occurred in April, 1997 and the first release, JavaPOS 1.2, occurred on 28 March 1998. The final release as a separate standard was version 1.6 in July 2001. Beginning with release 1.7, a single standards document was released by a UnifiedPOS committee. That standards document is then used to create the common JavaPOS libraries for the release.


See also

*
Point of sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...
* UnifiedPOS *
EFTPOS Electronic funds transfer at point of sale, abbreviated as EFTPOS (), is a type of payment transaction in which electronic funds transfers (EFT) are processed at a point of sale (POS) system or payment terminal usually via payment methods such as ...
*
Point of sale display A point-of-sale display (POS display) is a specialised form of sales promotion that is found near, on, or next to a checkout counter (the "point of sale"). They are intended to draw the customers' attention to products, which may be new products ...
* Point of Sale Malware


References


External links


JavaPOS
{{Use dmy dates, date=November 2019 Retail point of sale systems Computer standards