JavaPOS

JavaPOS (short for "Java for Point of Sale Devices"), is a standard for interfacing point of sale (POS) software, written in Java, 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)
* 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 (API)
JavaPOS consists 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.

ervice 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, RS232, RS485, or even an Ethernet 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 OS/X. (And those would be more likely due to happy circumstance rather than careful design.)

Historical background

JavaPOS was initiated by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and NCR to help integrate POS hardware into applications for any operating system that supports Java.

The first JavaPOS meeting was convened in April, 1997. In order to encourage adoption of the standard, the interface was based on the already existing OPOS standard. The first production release, 1.2, was made in 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.

External links

* [http://www.javapos.com JavaPOS]