Oxford Shop - PDE transfer

Use a PDE unit to enter the stock that is to be transfer to the store. They use a Denso PDE unit (Running Easypac Pro Software) - Configured with ask for ID.

They enter the Store ID - branch code on the PDE UNit, and then go and select the scan the stock items that are needed to be transfer to the store. They then just place press transfer on the PDE unit and place the PDE unit in its cradle, and out comes the sale transfer.

The smoke and mirrors that happens in the background is as follows.

On the server we have an entry in /etc/inittab (that is running all the time) that runs a script called pdetrans.

/etc/inittab pde:2345:respawn:/cc/binl/pdetrans > /cc/LOG/pdetrans.out 2>&1

The pdetrans scripts is running the "pdebht" program (pdebht is the program used to download barcodes and counts from the pde unit) that is continously in wait mode, waiting for the PDE unit to start transfering.

So when the PDE unit is placed in its cradle and the transfer option on the pde unit is press. The Barcodes and counts are downloaded from the unit to a file on the server. The script then calls pdeshp (pdeshp is linked to sieat) and passes the pde count file which generates and prints the sale transfer using the PDE (SCRIPT_ID) terminal settings.

When Oxford moved to their new location, the Warehouse now runs off the Headoffice server - the PDE unit is still plugged into the linux machine that is no longer being used as a workstation. On the linux machine there is a program called netserial, this program opens up a port (4001) on the network which redirects everything to /dev/ttyS0.

/etc/inittab ne:2345:respawn:/usr/local/bin/netserial 4001 /dev/ttyS0 19200,n,8,1 > /dev/null

so now on the headoffice machine instead of calling pdebht with the local port (/dev/ttyS0) we use the network port (tcp:123.0.0.169:4001)