Indiana bakery still using Commodore 64s originally released in 1982 as cash registers — Hilligoss Bakery in Brownsburg sticks to the BASICs
Indiana bakery still using Commodore 64s originally released in 1982 as cash registers — Hilligoss Bakery in Brownsburg sticks to the BASICs
Why create e-waste and spend money you don't have to when your existing retro hardware not only works fine but gives customers something to talk about?
I wish more people thought this way.
No, I'm all against e-waste, but the whole "if it ain't broke" mentality is asinine, that's how we end up with bullshit like the entire financial system of the country being underpinned by an ancient mainframe program written in COBOL and is a huge reason we STILL need to wait DAYS for transactions to process because it can't handle Real-time transactions. That's the result of a generation or 2 of executives going "If iT aINt BrOKe"
Retired that shit and repurpose it to teach kids the BASICs of programming or something.
The quote should be changed to "If it ain't broke, evaluate the modern options available and determine if it will truly improve things and switch to that if so"
the reason transactions take so long is because of compliance. COBOL, CICS (the tramsaction manager) and mainframes themselves are constantly being updated and optimized because no flavor of the week in the last three decades has been able to handle the throughput needed by the companies that still use them. if anything in the tech stack at banks is slowing down your paycheck getting cashed, it's the small army of nodeJS servers whose entire codebase gets rewritten every six months because some exec thinks COBOL isn't sexy enough and we can get rid of it we say the word "agile" enough. the fortune 500 has been planning on being "off the mainframe in the next 3 years" since the 90s
To me it's the tech equivalent of painting yourself into a corner, sure it works at the moment but what are the hidden costs of sticking on a dead end technology? What's the upgrade path from a C64, a C128? What happens if a chip on the circuitboard fails, or the power supply? Can't exactly order a new one, they stopped making them over 30 years ago and the company has been defunct for basically the same amount of time.
I wish I could remember more details, but I remember years ago reading about a company that had a core product that depended on an old 286 era laptop with a special software/hardware combo for maintenance, and all I could think of was that a single accidental bump of a table was all it'd take to shut down that product for months until they could find the exact replacement.
What do you suppose is the name of the point-of-sale software they're using?
Could have been made by someone local. They are likely using the SD card drive by now. I hope... I didn't get to read the full article as it asked me to sign in and I aborted.
What are those symbols printed on the side of the keycaps?
That's how you can draw basic things on the c64. It's showing the alternative symbols for the key.
That's amazing—talk about old-school tech standing the test of time! It’s a reminder that sometimes simple, reliable tools are all you need to keep things running smoothly. Speaking of timeless classics, Sonic foods offers a menu that balances retro vibes with modern tastes, much like Hilligoss Bakery’s blend of tradition and functionality. Both prove that sticking to what works can still deliver something fresh and satisfying!
How do they save transactions reliably? To floppy? Or tape?
What if the disk/tape is full.
I love it, but seems a bit flakey
They probably don't and it's just for pricing and printing receipts...
I guess they could record the sales using carbon copy receipt paper.
Realistically it only needs to hold info for the day. It's a bakery. They just need to know how much money should be in the cash drawer.
They make user port carts with SD cards that basically function as hard drives these days (though I doubt they would be using them). There is also paper as a record which may meet any requirements they have.
The C64 Mini and C64 Maxi are readily available today and affordably priced, making spare parts easily accessible.
If those work well enough for them, I cannot see any benefit of upgrading.
I know north American c64s had power supply issues and I think capacitor issues. I imagine the latter is true there as well, though not sure about the former
Yes, you can get a replacement power supply.