Aloha FoH terminal setup

[elite3vil]

Hi all,

I was called in tonight to take a look at an Aloha system running 5.3.15 (old, I know) and the owner asked me if it were possible to install a new pc as a FoH terminal. Problems I ran into in answering him were: 1) I don't know if this is possible, especially with such an old version and few computers coming with XP installed (and trying to find drivers for XP for the new 7 boxes isn't always fun). 2) How to do this, considering the vendor never gave him the install cds.

Any suggestions out there? He's trying not to buy new Radiant terminals, as they're much more expensive than your run of the mill computer would be.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[dauphin2]

This is all you need to install Aloha as a FOH terminal. It's basically a network install, as all the necessary files are located on the fileserver. If you have to use Windows 7 with that version of Aloha, you might be able to get away with using XP mode.

 

[elite3vil]

Hopefully you get a notification about this post. I'm trying to download your link now and Mediafire is asking for a password to unlock it? I hadn't needed the file until now, and thought that I had downloaded it but can't find it anywhere.

Thanks again.

 

[dauphin2]

It's removed. I usually lock the files after a certain amount of time.

 

[elite3vil]

Thanks. Got everything working up to the point where I had the FOH client installing, booting, and then erroring out due to not being able to open COM2 for a printer (I changed all the printers to use com1 on term1, but it didn't have any positive effect). COM2 which doesn't exist on the system, due to there only being one serial port was my issue. . I'm assuming this means I need to buy a PCI serial card and install it to make the FOH software boot?

 

[elite3vil]

I forgot to mention, the computer that I'm using (at least for the time being as a replacement, so they have SOMETHING, is going to be a standard XP box. Cash drawer is plugged into the TM88III and printer is plugged into COM1 on the computer. Error was something like "Unable to initialize COM 2, Error -1" (I didn't write it down, but assumed it had something to do with the fact there isn't a COM2 to init).

Also, just for the sake of talking I'd rate myself (on scale of 1-10) a 4-5 when it comes to ALOHA stuff, and a 8-9 when it comes to general pc/mac software/hardware. So if you have to get technical with something, please feel free. I tend to pick things up pretty easily, and can google most of the time when I'm running into problems.

Thanks again for the link, and for any other help you might be able to provide.

 

[dauphin2]

Yes, this means that something is trying to initialize on com2, but it might not be a printer. You can fix the error by adding a com2 or by disabling whatever is trying to use com2 in Aloha Manager. You want to check Maintenance>Hardware>Printers, Maintenance>Hardware>Terminals, and Maintenance>Cash Drawers as to what might be set to com2. You will not get this error unless something is trying to open the com port.

 

[hellbender3069]

The solution i use when getting into this type of trouble is using an USB to COM convertor from Aten. It gives me the option to change the portnumber to the needed com number and Aloha will give a notification of which device errored out.