Appendix A. Acronyms, Abbreviations & Definitions

1 What is POS?

POS (point of sale) is the physical location at which goods are sold to customers. A point-of-sale (POS) system, comprised of POS software and hardware, is a computer replacement for a traditional cash register. Capabilities of a POS system may includes customer management, order management, inventory management, report generation, credit card processing, and resource management among other things.

2 What is ESC/POS?

EPSON took the initiative by introducing ESC/POS, a proprietary POS printer command system, which includes patented or patent pending commands and enables versatile POS system construction with high scalability. Compatible with all types of EPSON POS printers and displays, this proprietary control system also offers the flexibility to easily make future upgrades. Its popularity is worldwide.

3 What is JavaPOS?

The Wikipedia defines JavaPOS as: JavaPOS ("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 JavaPOS standard committee was formed by a collection of retail vendors and end users to examine the ways in which Java Programming language could best be exploited in the retail environment.

The original JavaPOS programming standard (v1.2) was the end result of ten months of effort by this committee. It was followed by JavaPOS v1.3, which defined Java interfaces for three additional retail POS devices (Fiscal Printer, PIN Pad and Remote Order Display), and JavaPOS v1.4, which added the Credit Authorization Terminal (CAT) interface requested by Japanese retailers.