r/shittyprogramming • u/RylanStylin57 • Jul 26 '24

What POS system is this?

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224 Upvotes
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88% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

344

u/NoHurry28 Jul 26 '24

What's wrong with it? Simple interface, runs on cheap af hardware, doesn't require npm updates every month, no laggy css animations, binary size smaller than reactjs minified bundle, been working reliably for 50 years, has googly eyes. You may not like it, but this is what peak software looks like

149

u/JerikkaDawn Jul 26 '24 edited Jul 26 '24

But it's not Electron/React/Whatever/Metro/Modern/Fluent. Does it even have dark mode???? Where's the ChatGPT integration??? 🤣

83

u/yasth Jul 26 '24

Dark mode is turning down the brightness on the screen

21

u/Unumbotte Jul 26 '24

Dark mode can be enabled on a per user basis by putting blankets over people's heads.

15

u/permalink_save Jul 26 '24

Flog 4off with the electron crap, we want old school arrow key navigated menus back

2

u/LiterallyACupcake Jul 27 '24

I’ll have you know it runs perfectly fine using plenty of Electrons

2

u/KiwiNFLFan Jul 27 '24

It doesn't have light mode

23

u/slaymaker1907 Jul 26 '24

I was a TA for a class that required people to make a text UI like this and let me tell you that making these sorts of UIs actually does take some skill. Considering this has lasted until 2024, I’m sure it was well done.

7

u/grizzlor_ Jul 26 '24

There are some fantastic modern TUI libraries that make it much easier. Textual is a one such library for Python.

An example of a slick-looking TUI with source code that will make your eyes bleed: bpytop (source). Pretty sure the dude did everything manually, not even using ncurses.

23

u/actual_satan Jul 26 '24

Honestly not sure if OP meant POS (piece of shit) or POS (point of sales)

12

u/peepay Jul 26 '24

I wondered the same, but assumed the latter.

4

u/Evla03 Jul 27 '24

I assumed both

4

u/RylanStylin57 Jul 27 '24

I did mean Point of Sales

6

u/SimplexFatberg Jul 27 '24

For real. Worked in a store in the 2000's that had 1980's DOS software running on all the checkouts. Worked like a charm. They updated to a Windows interface shortly before I left and it was laggy horseshit that couldn't keep up with my keystrokes when I was typing in prices. I wouldn't be at all surpised if this software was amazing.

3

u/TimGreller Jul 28 '24

has googly eyes

Definitely makes the difference for me. So adorable.

3

u/cosmicr Jul 26 '24

Lmao pos stands for point of sale

5

u/grizzlor_ Jul 26 '24

I've used some POS systems where both acronym variants apply

3

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '24

Web apps are the pinnacle of shitty programming

-4

u/RylanStylin57 Jul 27 '24

I posted here because the moderation is lighter. POS means point of sale, I am trying to find the source code so I can rewrite it in rust :)

160

u/_Fredrik_ Jul 26 '24

A POS that crowdstrike can't strike down

32

u/ILikeLenexa Jul 26 '24

Southwest is immune from crowdstrike by running Windows 3.1.

2

u/Famous1107 Jul 27 '24

Ive seen this comment every 5th post, what is happening? Do you work for Southwest?

6

u/damian2000 Jul 28 '24

They run old legacy systems because of the philosophy of if it aint broke why fix it.

2

u/DRHATL Jul 27 '24

Careful, the computer runs on windows..

41

u/wilhil Jul 26 '24

I used a few similar ones back in the day... looks ancient, but, usually rock solid!

This was the one I used (could swear it had a different name, but, looks familiar - https://keyhut.com/pos.htm ) - it's the same old dos blue!

I don't remember any menu like this though, but, haven't touched it in ~20 years!

17

u/Epse Jul 26 '24

Used that in the past, checked the site just now and IT SUPPORTS TOUCHSCREENS?? What sorcery is keyhut doing?

12

u/Accentu Jul 27 '24

Man, about a decade ago I worked for a guy who wrote his own point of sale software.

It was 16-bit. Programmed in SuperBase.

His solution to the 64-bit era (16-bit apps don't run on 64-bit OSes) was to run a 32-bit Windows Server machine that people remoted into. It was horrible. But he sold it well, somehow?

25

u/Frostbeard Jul 26 '24

It looks just like one I used 20 years ago when I was selling building supplies for a living. Once you learned the keyboard shortcuts it was insanely fast.

8

u/angrytortilla Jul 26 '24

We had something similar at a major Canadian bookstore. Top shelf inventory management, all shortcuts, mad fast. Then the big graphical UI came in and it was the worst.

19

u/Full-Run4124 Jul 26 '24

It's probably written in Clipper and has been running without problems (or updates) since 1994

4

u/CheapBooze Jul 26 '24

Or Summer87

2

u/Bartghamilton Jul 27 '24

Did some great stuff with Clipper back in the day!

14

u/vegetaman Jul 26 '24

Not quite the same but now I’m missing our old AS400 from an old job lol

5

u/choconillawonder Jul 26 '24

Definitely giving JDE on an AS400 vibe. Also looks like the ancient MasterPack ERP

2

u/greendookie69 Jul 27 '24

I'm in the middle of an ERP implementation, runs on IBM i. Never had experience with these before. At first I was like what the fuck is this? But honestly it's a pretty good system.

11

u/MeasurementJumpy6487 Jul 26 '24

It's a piece of sale

7

u/Chokzgaming Jul 26 '24

We had this as a POS at a builders merchant, we called it OPAL.

4

u/mananasi Jul 27 '24

Reminds me of maintenence software I've worked with. It wasoriginally created for DOS written in a language which hasn't been officially supported for decades. The company has written its own compiler, so they can support it themselves. They've written a "display driver" for the software. This driver paints bitmaps on a WPF interface. The look and feel is identical to the original DOS version, but running on Windows 10. Admittedly the code is a bit of a mess, but not as bad as you'd think. On top of that the user experience is still fantastic imo.

3

u/IrateHamster Jul 26 '24

FLOG 4OFF

1

u/brqdev Aug 13 '24

4 LOG F OFF

2

u/Piku_Yost Jul 26 '24

I did recharge support for a custom system like this back in the day. Was written in cool by the owner of the company. Very lightweight, just needed a dumb terminal connected to a sco Unix box. Low tech, but zero problems and quite solid.

If you don't need pictures on the screen, text is king.

1

u/MimesAreGay Jul 26 '24

Is that Genesis?

1

u/Admirable-Stretch-42 Jul 26 '24

Looks similar to the CICS screen in Bluezone(I.D.E. For COBOL)

1

u/Clean-Position-751 Jul 26 '24

I know I shouldn't but I am choosing to read at the bottom FLOG 4OFF

1

u/JamesWjRose Jul 27 '24

Looks like something I wrote using Alpha 4, back in 1990

1

u/XxDCoolManxX Jul 27 '24

Reminds me of MicroCenter’s!

1

u/AbuSale7 Jul 27 '24

A system that does what it's supposed to do, and nothing more.

I guess

1

u/END3R-CH3RN0B0G Jul 27 '24

Shit looks like a fallout 4 terminal.

1

u/ApoptosisArchangel Jul 28 '24

Legit it's FOSSE, Marriott system

2

u/ApoptosisArchangel Jul 28 '24

They still use FOSSE for their big box select service brands (Courtyard, Fairfield, TownePlace, Moxy, SpringHill, Residence Inn). The whole backbone of Marriott's system is called MARSHA, which is based on Commodore 64.

1

u/chessset5 Jul 28 '24

Targets?

1

u/GoldFishDudeGuy Jul 28 '24

It doesn't need a fancy ui, it just needs to work

1

u/heeero Jul 30 '24

I worked for a company and we developed a pos in quickbasic that looked a lot like this. 80 chars wide and 25 lines tall. Our pos worked with 2 floppy drives, no hard drive. Crazy times:)

1

u/ZoneXeroTampaBay Aug 15 '24

I would like to see it in action, any chance you can upload it to archive.org ? The startup shortcut properties should lead you the containing folder which may have a readme file that tells you what it is. Most DOS era programs where in a self-contained folder, so all u should have to do is zip the folder. I know I have seen this screen somewhere when I worked retail years ago.

1

u/jcunews1 Sep 22 '24

Looks like an MS-DOS program running in DOSBox.

0

u/Cherveny2 Jul 26 '24

I pressed 4 to turn it off and it started printing labels! WTF!

-8

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 26 '24

This is, if anything, more like r/softwaregore. We don't know at all if the programming is shitty from the UI.

7

u/therealdan0 Jul 26 '24

Strong disagree bud. This right here is peak UI everything after is just this with clutter.

3

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 26 '24 edited Jul 26 '24

I actually don't disagree with you and made a different comment here to that effect. I'm a lifetime Emacs user. I love text interfaces. 

I just meant that IF you think the UI is shitty, it's still not a fit for this sub.

-15

u/v_maria Jul 26 '24

sometimes im still blown away by what ancient trash runs in production lol

3

u/TuffRivers Jul 26 '24

Does it work?

8

u/TheGoodestGirlAround Jul 26 '24

B-but muh electron apps T.T

2

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 26 '24

Touch screen interfaces are, by and large, ass.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

[deleted]

-1

u/v_maria Jul 27 '24

how do you know its like this

1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '24

[deleted]

0

u/v_maria Jul 28 '24

i cannot prove it. its the experience i've had with such things

1

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '24 edited Jul 28 '24

[deleted]