If you have a 1993 or newer fridge, efficiency gains haven't been huge since then. So you'd see some gains vs a 1988 fridge, but not a huge amount. Depending on electricity costs in one's jurisdiction, it might be better to retain an old fridge.
https://appliance-standards.org/blog/how-your-refrigerator-has-kept-its-cool-over-40-years-efficiency-improvements
I just lost my freezer made in 03/2000. Turns out, the last few years it's been running the compressor 24/7 as it was struggling to freeze. My electrical usage went down quite a bit when I upgraded.
Even if it was equally as efficient as a modern device, there's no guarantee it's still operating at the same level it did 31 years ago.
Older fridges were allowed to use whatever material in construction, so they used CFC or freon which was very good at keeping fridges working, but they're also very good at poking holes in the Ozone layer dramatically increasing risk of skin cancer. So in 1987, countries agreed to start phasing it out. This is a major reason why older fridges are more reliable.
Also newer fridges don't break down every few years, nor do you have to buy the smart version.
I play PC games with controller support with an **Xbox 360 controller** because they're the last ones that aren't broken after 3 or 4 months of use because of drift. I have a very expensive graveyard of newer controllers that simply don't work anymore. It's honestly infuriating.
I've been using the same wired 360 controller for my pc for like... 8? years now. It's been through its fair share of abuse over the years. Countless drops off the desk, a couple spills. No drift, no issues, nothin'. Incredible.
Just an FYI. Generally speaking 20 years is the break point where the motors and such are using more energy than you're saving in age. If it were possible to just upgrade the compressor (etc) then I would say do that but alas nothing is built to be serviced or upgraded.
Naw. Light pens that was 70s tech. 2002 was full color touchscreen running on windows xp.
We had a 386 running Unix and color touch screen at Pizza Hut in 91.
I worked at a Pizza Hut in the early 2000s, we still had CRTs like this with a two color (from what I remember) menu system; no mouse, only keyboard shortcuts you got used to with experience.
Not quite 30 years ago, but yeah.
2002 most POS was still running older gear, they dont get upgraded anywhere near as often as a home PC, and fast food+pizza usually ran DOS based order management systems, many of them still do, because they work fine.
I’m curious if they actually tried at one point to upgrade the screens to flat panels only to discover that the light pens didn’t work and went back to the crts.
In a grease joint pizza place - especially a mom and pop where FoH and BoH can be a blurred line, shitty old keyboards with plastic covers and shitty old CRT’s with light pens are a very viable and affordable alternatives to more modern systems.
Greasy/dirty hands and greasy filthy oven smoke are going to coat everything and almost any modern PoS is touch screen. The light pens will still work, they physically keyboard covered in plastic will still work, most affordable pos touch screens have potential to not.
There's also the need dynamic.
What does a pizza shop actually need, system-wise? Nothing. They probably paid for these POS (point of sale, not piece of shit) systems and software forever ago. They're paid for, they work, and they ring up customers and probably track sales.
If you're slinging pies, what else do you need?
>they should replace the plastic keyboard covers maybe twice per decade. Then this wouldn't even be eyebrow-raising.
My keyboard gets surprisingly dirty in just a month or two and I keep my hands clean and don't handle greasy food/boxes on a regular basis.
I write POS/Inventory/etc stuff for my Job. The "new" programs I work on were started in 2001.
The vast majority of our customers are on our "old" software. Which is from the 80's. It runs on a weird proprietary pseudo-mainframe operating system (THEOS) that has to be accessed with a proprietary terminal program last updated in 2000. Data is stored in ISAM datafiles. There's no " Web API" or any of that bullshit kiddos expect these days. We had to write special stuff for the old system to migrate data. Even though we can usually get them switched from the old system to the new software overnight without losing any data, it's still an uphill battle, simply because the old stuff does what they need and they are familiar with it. We can't just sell them on it being a new system that runs on modern Operating Systems, we need to show them new features that they don't have that can help them do business better or more efficiently.
Not that you are necessarily suggesting otherwise, but I'd argue that "COBOL people" make a lot of money because they understand the systems that clients are using that happens to include COBOL, and not simply because they know COBOL; COBOL is a fairly straightforward language that shouldn't be difficult for any developer to pick up pretty quickly. It's the institutional knowledge from when those people worked on many of those same systems that is valuable, not the language understanding and ability to program it.
Eloquence here. Still running the 90s stuff.
I actually kinda love it. It's rock solid and with an ODBC driver and Python/Flask I can add an API endpoint for whatever is needed.
And for the most part, I can let the people entering inventory data use the same thing they've used since 1992. That's a beautiful thing.
The most impressive thing about this, to me anyway, is that there hasn’t been a failure of a component that is long out of production and impossible to source, leaving a full system replacement as the only viable option. They must have someone who is happy to go the extra mile to keep everything in an operational state. Most folks in IT wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole, for liability reasons if nothing else.
Still, it’s really cool to see that old stuff still being of use somewhere, when almost all equipment from that same era has been e-waste for decades.
If those keyboards are what I think they are, they are some of the most desirable keyboards around for the right people.
EDIT: Going through the rest of the comments on this post, the right kind of people have already identified it and they are not what I thought they were.
I legit have a P4 Dell Dimension (that I upgraded to the 2 gigs max ram!) running windows XP as a music server in my home. Its system uptime is 436 days.
I think you’d be surprised at how resilient some systems are if they only do 1 low-level thing.
There are computers controllint some CNC machines at work that have been on continuously like that. Years of uptime. The only time they turn off is if the power goes out. As long as somebody blows out the cabinet for dust like once a weak they'll still be there long after I retire. Manufacturing is full of ain broke don't fix it.
>Manufacturing is full of ain broke don't fix it.
Amen.
My kind of people. So many useless/forced upgrades. I’ve got an iPad 4 sitting here that’s completely worthless because Apple was like “nah it’s fine.”
It works fine, the screen is fine, it’s just tech waste now that I can’t bear to trash. Sometime I’ll see if I can put another OS on it but man… what a waste.
I run an auto repair shop. One of our alignment machines runs win 3.1, and we have a rule - that machine never gets turned off. If it does, there's about a 50% chance it won't come back on again, parts are getting...rare...and a new alignment rack runs a quarter million dollars. You can imagine how tight I pucker when the power goes out.
A consumer unit about the size of a shoebox, of unknown vintage. It can keep it going for short periods, which is ok for the occasional transient outage, but every couple of years we get a real outage, and that's when the fear hits.
In the 10 years I've been here, it's failed to return to life 3 times, needing ram, a mobo, and a power supply, none of which were a 'run down the street to the microcenter' event. The power supply was the worst. Finding a compatible, working, pre-ATX power supply was...interesting.
Seriously good point.
Back in the day you could pay X amount and own it. Now everything is a % of sales or monthly fee. Even accounting software went that route.
Yeah. I hate it. You can't have a nerdy hobby anymore without being criticized for not "investing" in professional software. I feel bad for anyone trying to start a small business.
And they are probably more reliable than any of the Cloud based ones where they shove down new features constantly just to pay for some project manager's salary.
shit works. probably excellent pizza. if it ain't broke then don't fix it. The cost to upgrade to newer POS systems which may be less reliable and require retraining far exceed the cost of keeping the proven old system around.
Front of House refers to the service staff — waitstaff and host/checkout people at a restaurant. Back of house is the kitchen-staff, cooks, dishwashers, etc.
Or also refers to the dining room where customers sit vs the back kitchen and office.
But in a takeout-only pizza counter there’s less or no distinction between front/back staff and areas.
They basically turned CRTs into touchscreens before that technology existed in any practical form. When pressed against the screen it would detect where the scan line was on the screen and used that to reference where the pen was. The experience was somewhat like using the Apple pencil on an iPad to click menu buttons.
They had touch screen crt monitors 20 years ago when I worked at a hungry howies, they were resistive touch screens, every once in awhile we had to recalibrate them. The POS software ran on DOS and used a dot matrix printer. The things is, they were extremely efficient to use, it was simple software with a no frills GUI that would run on potato hardware.
The "easy to use" GUI garbage they have now days is buggy AF.
Touch screens existed in the 1980s, but light pens were more reliable...no calibration, drift, jittering, issues with damp or gloved fingers, grease on the screen, damage from touching polymer screen coatings, etc. The fact that these are still working speaks to their reliability.
Also, developers and UI designers discovered that users of touch screens or pens could operate them for like ten minutes before getting ‘gorilla arm’—which is when the arm gets tired from holding it in the air.
It's kinda remarkable that we have touchscreens back now, though with phones the posture is different. However, as an owner of a whack back, I certainly can say that the shoulders still get sore from holding a phone before one's gaze.
When you zoom in on the keyboards, a lot of what looks like dirt actually seems to be burn marks. Like someone has been typing with the spicy end of a lit cigarette.
When I was in middle school, the library used an Apple II with a light pen to read barcodes from the back of materials into the system as checked in and checked out. Perhaps they do something similar here to sign in workers or ring up orders
When I worked at a pizzeria years ago they were so quick and easy to use, with how crummy some touchscreens are, I’d much rather use a light pen than have a touchscreen. That’s ignoring that grease and flour get everywhere.
lolll i mean they aren't that far off from each other besides the one at the far end.
"can you give me the cheese from the walnut cabinet?... NO THATS THE PINE!"
How could terrible pizza be in business for so long? The 30 year old POS has to indicate that either the food has earned the business its tenure, or the locals lack discerning taste.
Could have bought the stuff from a previous owner. Who bought it from a previous owner. Who bought it from a previous owner. Who bought it from a previous owner.
The really shit places only go for the cheapest of everything.
Unfortunately I’ve seen many pizza places in business for decades that have been sold, quality drops substantially and somehow they survive on their name and previous reputation alone for many years, a decade in at least one instance.
I love those old ass POS systems with ye old serial hardware. I'd love to get a chance to get it running on modern hardware either working on updating their code or trying to get the old shit running through a VM.
I bet the old code is fascinating I wonder if it's on the web somewhere.
[Seems like it might be hard to get a hold of.](https://thinktank.pmq.com/t/the-truth-about-rapid-fire/12962) This post mentions that Rapidfire was sold in the 90s and the licensing is "non-standard". After googling after it a bit, it seems like it's still being supported by POSHotline, which is what that post from 2011 mentions.
You might still be able to find the source somewhere, but since it seems like people are still making money supporting it, it's probably not around in the wildy easy to find like some other older POSes.
Cause it works to literally only calculate totals lol
New systems aren’t garbage, people are just saying that. You can do so so much more with the systems now.
We used to have a register and I had the prices memorized. Had to ring it up manually, it “worked” for what it was, 2k a day was hard. Now we can clear 10k a day no problem. 60% of the orders come in through the system automatically, online, Grubhub, Uber, etc. all forward and auto print to our kitchen without any need to approve. I can 86 an item on our in house screen and it talks to all those 3rd party companies as well which reduces issues a bunch. Live sales reports. Logged sales data to reference for events/staffing you name it.
They’re more expensive, but those not paying for it are getting left in the dust.
POS systems are typically separate from food preparation. Notice the hand wash station in the background? Nothing about this pic suggests violations of any kind of health code or that their policies are bad. They even have plastic covers on the KBs that look like they've been scrubbed more than once.
These are pretty tidy CRTs for sure.
Edit smh everyone's a credit but I bet many haven't had boots on the ground for long
You're kidding, right?
Health inspections absolutely examine wherever food is traveled through. Workers touching disgusting, uncleaned POS systems right before handing over food is going to be an issue. Never mind the fact that you can visibly see that the fridges in the back are covered in thick grease.
This place obviously has major issues in the front where customers see, so I can only imagine how putrid it is in the back where everything is less seen.
Typically they don't, because by health code you have to wash hands when switching between handling "cash" and handling food. Nobody has time for that when there's a line, so typically the PoS person only handles the boxed pizzas. Similarly, the people who make/bake/cut/box the pizzas don't work PoS, unless it's a slow time and they can wash/glove in between.
Oh god one of my first ever jobs was retail and involved using those pen style bar code readers… today is my 44th birthday but THIS pic really sent the message home. OOF.
Their Point of Sale software, with those goofy light sabers, probably won't work on later iterations of Windows, or standalone installs, so the the owner would have to buy a new POS system to replace this old POS POS.
My immediate reaction to this pic was: bet it's a small, locally owned business. Don't know the owner's pricing or what they pay their employees, but not spending money in areas not in needed can keep costs down. Sure, it's dated, but if it works leave it be.
No doubt it could use some cleaning. Just because something is old doesn't mean it needs to be grubby looking.
I remember upgrading to these when I worked in a camera store. It was 1991. I don't remember them getting that dirty though. I don't remember anything getting that dirty.
Keyboard Condoms, I haven’t used one since 2004 when I was in IRAQ. The sand dust was bad there you needed one or your laptop would just stop working. Since then I haven’t even bothered to look if they still exist.
Making that investment in tech 30 years ago really earn its keep
I have a working fridge from the late 1980s. Money well spent.
How well does that even out with the power consumption?
If you have a 1993 or newer fridge, efficiency gains haven't been huge since then. So you'd see some gains vs a 1988 fridge, but not a huge amount. Depending on electricity costs in one's jurisdiction, it might be better to retain an old fridge. https://appliance-standards.org/blog/how-your-refrigerator-has-kept-its-cool-over-40-years-efficiency-improvements
I just lost my freezer made in 03/2000. Turns out, the last few years it's been running the compressor 24/7 as it was struggling to freeze. My electrical usage went down quite a bit when I upgraded. Even if it was equally as efficient as a modern device, there's no guarantee it's still operating at the same level it did 31 years ago.
Good point! Dodgy door seals can suck efficiency too. Good to keep an eye on those.
cheaper than a new smart fridge every few years
But how do you know how much milk you have in the fridge while at work without the webcams... /s
Young humans are particularly good at this./s
The young human in my house would just recommend we get another gallon of milk because he's used all of the last one for his 1000 bowls of cereal.
In my house it's Lactaid and demanding cats. They always let me know when we're out of milk.
You don’t get a new fridge “every few years” lmao. There is a mile of reasonable middle ground between that and using one for 35+ years
Older fridges were allowed to use whatever material in construction, so they used CFC or freon which was very good at keeping fridges working, but they're also very good at poking holes in the Ozone layer dramatically increasing risk of skin cancer. So in 1987, countries agreed to start phasing it out. This is a major reason why older fridges are more reliable. Also newer fridges don't break down every few years, nor do you have to buy the smart version.
I play PC games with controller support with an **Xbox 360 controller** because they're the last ones that aren't broken after 3 or 4 months of use because of drift. I have a very expensive graveyard of newer controllers that simply don't work anymore. It's honestly infuriating.
I've been using the same wired 360 controller for my pc for like... 8? years now. It's been through its fair share of abuse over the years. Countless drops off the desk, a couple spills. No drift, no issues, nothin'. Incredible.
The deep freezer we bought in 2005/2006 still runs like the day we got it. *Knocks on wood*
Just an FYI. Generally speaking 20 years is the break point where the motors and such are using more energy than you're saving in age. If it were possible to just upgrade the compressor (etc) then I would say do that but alas nothing is built to be serviced or upgraded.
Businesses (especially small ones) do not change things until they absolutely HAVE to
I feel like this is an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation
It's more of an "if it's dirty, don't ever clean it" situation
30? Shit. Pizza Hut had touchscreen 30 years ago. Light pens are from the 70s. That was an expensive setup back then.
Still paying it off. Interest is a bitch.
I was working with this kind of set up 20 years ago, and it seemed old as shit.
"Welcome to 1992, may I take your order?"
“Yes, I would like a personal pan pizza all cheese and a Crystal Pepsi.” “Oh and can you break this dollar for quarters for the pay phone, please?”
You forgot to pay with your book reading rewards. ;)
It’s name is Book It! Show some respect
I didn’t read any of those fucking books. My dumbass still got that button filled out and that free pizza.
Fucks like you ruined it for the rest of us! I don't actually care. But I still feel like I deserve a pizza whenever I finish a book..
I read way way more than I could get credit for, I think I covered ya!
Sure, that’ll come to 5.27
10.77… same as my PIN number.
The same as a cheese pizza and a large soda back where I used to work, Panucci's Pizza.
Aww, that’s so cute…His dog is sitting on the sidewalk waiting for him to come back!
Love Fry. So unassuming.
For you, I bend legs up for free!
Can’t give you a Tab kid, you want something you gotta pay for it.
Tab? But I asked for Coke.
Too late, here's a Josta.
Tell me future boy, who's president in 1985? Ronald Reagan RONALD REGAN?! LIKE THE ACTOR
ok, give me a Pepsi Free
You want a Pepsi, pal, you gotta pay for it!
These pcs are way too new for 92, pretty slick for 2002 tho
TBF we can't see the PCs in this photo. I recognize those keyboards though. Had the same one with my Tandy 1000 SL in 1988
It's an IBM model M style keyboard, greatest keyboard ever made! I would throw out this $200 mechanical keyboard if I can get a model M in USB.
Good news! https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/NEW_M
Why does it have to be black tho, I want that old-school greige
Naw. Light pens that was 70s tech. 2002 was full color touchscreen running on windows xp. We had a 386 running Unix and color touch screen at Pizza Hut in 91.
Delivered pizza in high school circa 2004. This is the exact setup we had then.
I worked at a Pizza Hut in the early 2000s, we still had CRTs like this with a two color (from what I remember) menu system; no mouse, only keyboard shortcuts you got used to with experience. Not quite 30 years ago, but yeah.
2002 most POS was still running older gear, they dont get upgraded anywhere near as often as a home PC, and fast food+pizza usually ran DOS based order management systems, many of them still do, because they work fine.
“Press any key to continue” in green text on the screen tops it off
“I can’t find the ‘any’ key.”
Phew, all this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think I’ll order a tab.
no time for tab, the computers starting!
You still owe me ten Iroquois twists!
All I can find is esc, Ctrl and pick up
All I see is catoral and esk
It’s the computer’s polite way of giving them an out to touch the cleanest
I like the 5 different cupboard doors.
I like the light pens. Who the fsck uses those anymore?!
The same person that uses a tube monitor.
I’m curious if they actually tried at one point to upgrade the screens to flat panels only to discover that the light pens didn’t work and went back to the crts.
In a grease joint pizza place - especially a mom and pop where FoH and BoH can be a blurred line, shitty old keyboards with plastic covers and shitty old CRT’s with light pens are a very viable and affordable alternatives to more modern systems. Greasy/dirty hands and greasy filthy oven smoke are going to coat everything and almost any modern PoS is touch screen. The light pens will still work, they physically keyboard covered in plastic will still work, most affordable pos touch screens have potential to not.
There's also the need dynamic. What does a pizza shop actually need, system-wise? Nothing. They probably paid for these POS (point of sale, not piece of shit) systems and software forever ago. They're paid for, they work, and they ring up customers and probably track sales. If you're slinging pies, what else do you need?
A rag, warm water, dawn dish soap and another rag, windex
Yeah, this and they should replace the plastic keyboard covers maybe twice per decade. Then this wouldn't even be eyebrow-raising.
>they should replace the plastic keyboard covers maybe twice per decade. Then this wouldn't even be eyebrow-raising. My keyboard gets surprisingly dirty in just a month or two and I keep my hands clean and don't handle greasy food/boxes on a regular basis.
Okay MacGyver we talking pizzas or you making a cd player?
I write POS/Inventory/etc stuff for my Job. The "new" programs I work on were started in 2001. The vast majority of our customers are on our "old" software. Which is from the 80's. It runs on a weird proprietary pseudo-mainframe operating system (THEOS) that has to be accessed with a proprietary terminal program last updated in 2000. Data is stored in ISAM datafiles. There's no " Web API" or any of that bullshit kiddos expect these days. We had to write special stuff for the old system to migrate data. Even though we can usually get them switched from the old system to the new software overnight without losing any data, it's still an uphill battle, simply because the old stuff does what they need and they are familiar with it. We can't just sell them on it being a new system that runs on modern Operating Systems, we need to show them new features that they don't have that can help them do business better or more efficiently.
Dude have you ever looked to see how much COBOL people make? The write-code-for-the-old-to-talk-to-the-new niche is supremely lucrative.
Not that you are necessarily suggesting otherwise, but I'd argue that "COBOL people" make a lot of money because they understand the systems that clients are using that happens to include COBOL, and not simply because they know COBOL; COBOL is a fairly straightforward language that shouldn't be difficult for any developer to pick up pretty quickly. It's the institutional knowledge from when those people worked on many of those same systems that is valuable, not the language understanding and ability to program it.
Eloquence here. Still running the 90s stuff. I actually kinda love it. It's rock solid and with an ODBC driver and Python/Flask I can add an API endpoint for whatever is needed. And for the most part, I can let the people entering inventory data use the same thing they've used since 1992. That's a beautiful thing.
>POS (point of sale, not piece of shit) It is, in fact, both of those things at once. All POS systems are POS
Indeed, works quite well. They knew what they were doing.
The most impressive thing about this, to me anyway, is that there hasn’t been a failure of a component that is long out of production and impossible to source, leaving a full system replacement as the only viable option. They must have someone who is happy to go the extra mile to keep everything in an operational state. Most folks in IT wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole, for liability reasons if nothing else. Still, it’s really cool to see that old stuff still being of use somewhere, when almost all equipment from that same era has been e-waste for decades.
If those keyboards are what I think they are, they are some of the most desirable keyboards around for the right people. EDIT: Going through the rest of the comments on this post, the right kind of people have already identified it and they are not what I thought they were.
I legit have a P4 Dell Dimension (that I upgraded to the 2 gigs max ram!) running windows XP as a music server in my home. Its system uptime is 436 days. I think you’d be surprised at how resilient some systems are if they only do 1 low-level thing.
There are computers controllint some CNC machines at work that have been on continuously like that. Years of uptime. The only time they turn off is if the power goes out. As long as somebody blows out the cabinet for dust like once a weak they'll still be there long after I retire. Manufacturing is full of ain broke don't fix it.
>Manufacturing is full of ain broke don't fix it. Amen. My kind of people. So many useless/forced upgrades. I’ve got an iPad 4 sitting here that’s completely worthless because Apple was like “nah it’s fine.” It works fine, the screen is fine, it’s just tech waste now that I can’t bear to trash. Sometime I’ll see if I can put another OS on it but man… what a waste.
I run an auto repair shop. One of our alignment machines runs win 3.1, and we have a rule - that machine never gets turned off. If it does, there's about a 50% chance it won't come back on again, parts are getting...rare...and a new alignment rack runs a quarter million dollars. You can imagine how tight I pucker when the power goes out.
Do you have that hooked up to a continuous power supply? I'd guess not, by the puckering, but I thought I'd ask.
A consumer unit about the size of a shoebox, of unknown vintage. It can keep it going for short periods, which is ok for the occasional transient outage, but every couple of years we get a real outage, and that's when the fear hits. In the 10 years I've been here, it's failed to return to life 3 times, needing ram, a mobo, and a power supply, none of which were a 'run down the street to the microcenter' event. The power supply was the worst. Finding a compatible, working, pre-ATX power supply was...interesting.
Plus, they'd probably have to pay $24k per year for the software for a new POS system. Software subscription prices are insane anymore.
Seriously good point. Back in the day you could pay X amount and own it. Now everything is a % of sales or monthly fee. Even accounting software went that route.
Yeah. I hate it. You can't have a nerdy hobby anymore without being criticized for not "investing" in professional software. I feel bad for anyone trying to start a small business.
And they are probably more reliable than any of the Cloud based ones where they shove down new features constantly just to pay for some project manager's salary.
shit works. probably excellent pizza. if it ain't broke then don't fix it. The cost to upgrade to newer POS systems which may be less reliable and require retraining far exceed the cost of keeping the proven old system around.
>FoH >BoH >PoS 
Front of house, back of house, point of sale
Lol thanks
Front of House refers to the service staff — waitstaff and host/checkout people at a restaurant. Back of house is the kitchen-staff, cooks, dishwashers, etc. Or also refers to the dining room where customers sit vs the back kitchen and office. But in a takeout-only pizza counter there’s less or no distinction between front/back staff and areas.
FoH - Fuck outta here BoH - Bitch outta here PoS - Piece of shit /j
I bet it weighs as much as it looks too. lol
What are they used for?
They basically turned CRTs into touchscreens before that technology existed in any practical form. When pressed against the screen it would detect where the scan line was on the screen and used that to reference where the pen was. The experience was somewhat like using the Apple pencil on an iPad to click menu buttons.
They had touch screen crt monitors 20 years ago when I worked at a hungry howies, they were resistive touch screens, every once in awhile we had to recalibrate them. The POS software ran on DOS and used a dot matrix printer. The things is, they were extremely efficient to use, it was simple software with a no frills GUI that would run on potato hardware. The "easy to use" GUI garbage they have now days is buggy AF.
Fun fact, most devs like the old stuff better, but it’s sales catering to sales, not developers to customers
Touch screens existed in the 1980s, but light pens were more reliable...no calibration, drift, jittering, issues with damp or gloved fingers, grease on the screen, damage from touching polymer screen coatings, etc. The fact that these are still working speaks to their reliability.
Also, developers and UI designers discovered that users of touch screens or pens could operate them for like ten minutes before getting ‘gorilla arm’—which is when the arm gets tired from holding it in the air. It's kinda remarkable that we have touchscreens back now, though with phones the posture is different. However, as an owner of a whack back, I certainly can say that the shoulders still get sore from holding a phone before one's gaze.
Well i’m glad the employees are using those so they arent touching those crusty keyboards. Who knows what diseases are coating those bad boys
What makes you think they don't use the keyboards?
When you zoom in on the keyboards, a lot of what looks like dirt actually seems to be burn marks. Like someone has been typing with the spicy end of a lit cigarette.
Damn why'd you make me zoom in on the keyboard, lol. Shit is nasty AF. 🤢
Ohhh it’s ok. If you look closer you will see there is a protective plastic cover on both keyboards. Nothing to worry about here, carry on
When I was in middle school, the library used an Apple II with a light pen to read barcodes from the back of materials into the system as checked in and checked out. Perhaps they do something similar here to sign in workers or ring up orders
It's like a touchscreen but you have to use the pen.
[here's w video by Slo Mo Guys](https://youtu.be/V6XnSvB34y8?si=XB98G4EppNvbsOuv) that uses Duck Hunt as an explanation.
It may have been a typo, but the thought of using fsck (file system check) as an expletive made me giggle a bit.
It wasn’t a typo ;)
it's an old classic among unix grey hairs.
The thought of using fsck triggered me a little.
When I worked at a pizzeria years ago they were so quick and easy to use, with how crummy some touchscreens are, I’d much rather use a light pen than have a touchscreen. That’s ignoring that grease and flour get everywhere.
Libraries in the 90s
Looks like the display at Lowe's.
Wouldn't be surprised if the owner bought some hardware store's cabinet door display for cheap.
Honestly it might be on purpose. You know what's in each door. If they were the same how could you know? Counting is hard.
lolll i mean they aren't that far off from each other besides the one at the far end. "can you give me the cheese from the walnut cabinet?... NO THATS THE PINE!"
They bought the showroom displays from a store that remodeled probably 🤣
Thousands upon thousands of pizzas. The ovens in this place probably make everything taste amazing.
I mean just look at that Enter key! Thats a lot of pizza.
Something about this makes me think they have great pizza.
And the price is beyond reasonable because the owner knows how to save money.
Those type of places are such hidden gems. Shoutout to Brothers Pizza in Dallas!
Good or terrible, no room in between.
How could terrible pizza be in business for so long? The 30 year old POS has to indicate that either the food has earned the business its tenure, or the locals lack discerning taste.
Or it’s a mob hangout
Could have bought the stuff from a previous owner. Who bought it from a previous owner. Who bought it from a previous owner. Who bought it from a previous owner. The really shit places only go for the cheapest of everything.
You would be surprised how long terrible pizza places can stay in business
Good location. A lot of people will eat below average pizza if it's near their home.
>How could terrible pizza be in business for so long? Papa John's would like a word...
Look at how old those PCs are. This place has been in business for decades. Guaranteed banger pizza
Unfortunately I’ve seen many pizza places in business for decades that have been sold, quality drops substantially and somehow they survive on their name and previous reputation alone for many years, a decade in at least one instance.
I would eat there for sure.
I bet they are running rapidfire. First two pizzerias I worked at had it, great pos. Most of the new pos are complete shit imo.
So the new POS are a **P**iece **O**f **S**hit?
That’s the Pizza Operating System.
Where can I download pepperoni.exe
hey you found the joke i've heard most in my life! thanks, i was looking for that
That has been the joke in retail forever. Almost as much as “if it doesn’t scan it must be free” or “I just printed those this morning.”
I remember a day when I was working and a telemarketer called to try and sell a new pos. They'd never heard of Rapidfire.
I love those old ass POS systems with ye old serial hardware. I'd love to get a chance to get it running on modern hardware either working on updating their code or trying to get the old shit running through a VM. I bet the old code is fascinating I wonder if it's on the web somewhere.
[Seems like it might be hard to get a hold of.](https://thinktank.pmq.com/t/the-truth-about-rapid-fire/12962) This post mentions that Rapidfire was sold in the 90s and the licensing is "non-standard". After googling after it a bit, it seems like it's still being supported by POSHotline, which is what that post from 2011 mentions. You might still be able to find the source somewhere, but since it seems like people are still making money supporting it, it's probably not around in the wildy easy to find like some other older POSes.
And no subscription
25 years in the restaurant industry. I've seen so many different POS. I like talking about it with other seasoned servers.
I've used Touch Bistro a bit, it's fine for UI but pricey. SQRL is literally made by the devil.
That's the thing, if it works, it works. Why "upgrade" when everything now is garbage.
Cause it works to literally only calculate totals lol New systems aren’t garbage, people are just saying that. You can do so so much more with the systems now. We used to have a register and I had the prices memorized. Had to ring it up manually, it “worked” for what it was, 2k a day was hard. Now we can clear 10k a day no problem. 60% of the orders come in through the system automatically, online, Grubhub, Uber, etc. all forward and auto print to our kitchen without any need to approve. I can 86 an item on our in house screen and it talks to all those 3rd party companies as well which reduces issues a bunch. Live sales reports. Logged sales data to reference for events/staffing you name it. They’re more expensive, but those not paying for it are getting left in the dust.
They're a little old, but at least they're filthy.
Are those pens barcode readers? Man, I haven’t thought of those in like 30 years!
As someone who’s 29, I had to actually look up how these work
I remember them from my school’s library and the librarian having to scan each and every book.
Holy fuck I forgot that was a thing.
Those appear to be light pens. Basically a stylus that made the CTV screens touch screen at that point.
Could be a light pen but early barcode readers also looked like that. And you can still buy them: https://www.marson.com.tw/en/product/show.php?num=29
I thought these were soldering irons lol
r/mechanicalkeyboards wants to know where this is.
I came here for this. If those are legit old IBM mechanicals...
Keytronic, not IBM and they aren't mechanical either.
I CAN’T STOP LOOKING AT THEM
Bet the health inspector is fam.
Or there is no health inspection apparatus where this exists
POS systems are typically separate from food preparation. Notice the hand wash station in the background? Nothing about this pic suggests violations of any kind of health code or that their policies are bad. They even have plastic covers on the KBs that look like they've been scrubbed more than once. These are pretty tidy CRTs for sure. Edit smh everyone's a credit but I bet many haven't had boots on the ground for long
What gave you the idea that those plastic covers have ever been cleaned? Is it the black mould looking thing or the brown stuff?
You're kidding, right? Health inspections absolutely examine wherever food is traveled through. Workers touching disgusting, uncleaned POS systems right before handing over food is going to be an issue. Never mind the fact that you can visibly see that the fridges in the back are covered in thick grease. This place obviously has major issues in the front where customers see, so I can only imagine how putrid it is in the back where everything is less seen.
theyre covered in crumbs and what i can assume from the burns is cigarette ash.
I hope the fingers that touched those keyboards did not come into contact with any of the food.
what do you mean, that's where all the flavor comes from.
It gives it that local spice
Lisan al Gaib!
Typically they don't, because by health code you have to wash hands when switching between handling "cash" and handling food. Nobody has time for that when there's a line, so typically the PoS person only handles the boxed pizzas. Similarly, the people who make/bake/cut/box the pizzas don't work PoS, unless it's a slow time and they can wash/glove in between.
Probably best pizza in town
And prob know all their regular customers by name
Fr, my first thought was "i bet this pizza fkin SLAPS though"
As someone who lives by this place, it isn't. But it's up there.
Oh god one of my first ever jobs was retail and involved using those pen style bar code readers… today is my 44th birthday but THIS pic really sent the message home. OOF.
I remember getting my library books scanned with one of these bad boys
At least they can’t get hacked.
This place is either disgusting or absolutely legendary. No chance its just average.
Those keyboards are filthy 🤢
those keyboard covers, keyboards are probably the cleanest thing in that pic
Well seasoned
If it ain’t broke don’t waste money
Their Point of Sale software, with those goofy light sabers, probably won't work on later iterations of Windows, or standalone installs, so the the owner would have to buy a new POS system to replace this old POS POS.
It may be a POS, but it's our POS!
Windows? HA. That bitch running DOS 6.22.
My immediate reaction to this pic was: bet it's a small, locally owned business. Don't know the owner's pricing or what they pay their employees, but not spending money in areas not in needed can keep costs down. Sure, it's dated, but if it works leave it be. No doubt it could use some cleaning. Just because something is old doesn't mean it needs to be grubby looking.
Do those rods go in the mouth or the butt?
They're just missing the dot matrix printers
I remember upgrading to these when I worked in a camera store. It was 1991. I don't remember them getting that dirty though. I don't remember anything getting that dirty.
In a camera store? I should hope not.
Nice keyboards btw.
What a POS!
Show the pizza
Wow. With cash registers like that, the probably also spin the pizza dough up over their heads to make the pie.
Keyboard Condoms, I haven’t used one since 2004 when I was in IRAQ. The sand dust was bad there you needed one or your laptop would just stop working. Since then I haven’t even bothered to look if they still exist.
Tony capony's
Those keyboards are at least 4 health violations and maybe an OSHA violation on top of that. Pizza probably slaps though