Buy Aloha without buying new equipment

[eburks]

We looked at buying a new system from our dealer last year but they wanted to tie it to sales of new equipment which was not the case last time we purchased 5 years ago. I have seen too many Radiant terminals in the last 5 years with the "bad capacitor" problems.

Can you buy Aloha license from any dealers without buying their new equipment (or NEW OLD STOCK :-( as I have seen it)

How is the reliability that you have seen on Radiant terminals for the last 4 years?

 

[posignite]

Let's just say I wouldn't purchase anything without the warranty. They are well known for not only bad caps, but also bad power supply(probably once a year), and sometimes back light. It's funny how they put old cheap Celeron boards in there, 1.2 mhz or something like that. I guess you really don't need much more to run Aloha though, but I can bet they are old stock from the capacitor plague of the last decade. Seems to me that you may be better off just getting yourself a two part system Elo monitor and maybe a mini barebones PC.

 

[eburks]

> Seems to me that you may be better off just getting yourself a two part system Elo > monitor and maybe a mini barebones PC

That is exactly what I like to do. But the whole reason for this thread is to find out about possibly purchasing ALOHA without purchasing the Radiant equipment and unless someone chimes in different; it appears that is no longer possible.

So... I have been looking at used systems with recent versions of Aloha to get the software key. I need to find out if I am going to be able to support version 7.x like I have supported 5.3 through 6.7 over the last 10 years. Too many of the used systems I see either have no key or have aloha 5.2 and older installed. I just missed out on a 7.0 system which would have been great (If I can get full access rights to Aloha Manager on a 7.x system???)

 

[RobertDubreyIV]

Well, the Radiant systems are inherently more secure when configured properly. The credit card processing companies came down hard on everyone "because they can't keep their own systems secure" with PCI compliancy, securing customer data is a very real consideraton. The generic two piece PC models don't provide for secure credit card transaction processing in many cases. That being said.....

Technically at this time yes you can run any Windows client operating system and Aloha will run it it. I would stop short at Windows XP SP3 updated if you can find them even. Your only consideratings will be having enough serial ports to run your printers.

Rob

 

[coorsman]

Hi Rob,
Still working with Aloha with the group down south or are you on your own?



Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[BIGGBYNinja]

Yes, you can purchase an Aloha software license and HASP key for the BOH and run the Aloha FOH software on non-Radiant terminals. We have been doing that for over 2 years.

Here is what we use:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2668390

Touchscreen (USB) with room for VESA mounting

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119070

Foxconn AMD Thin Client PC mounted on back of touchscreen

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171667

SSD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231212

RAM

http://www.tekservepos.com/product-catalog/details/receipt-printer/epson-tm-t88v

Epson TM-T88V USB Receipt Printer

http://www.geminicomputersinc.com/idt-idmb334102b.html

IDTech USB MSR

http://www.provantage.com/bixolon-bcd-1100dg~7BIXO04E.htm

Bixolon USB Pole Display

http://www.ebay.com/sch/jaybletzinger/m.html

Model 5-320 Cash Drawer, but currently not listed on their ebay, maybe try an ebay search for epson cash drawer?

http://xrl.us/bpc55t

(Link to

http://www.ebay.com)

In regards to credit card security, the USB MSR we use does support OPOS, so I believe that protects it from most software keyloggers. However, with our computer attached to the back of the touchscreen, facing a customer, it does present the thin client and its USB ports out in the open, would be trivial to install a USB hardware keylogger if one wanted to. Solution would be to forget about mounting the thin client on the touchscreen and instead have it mounted elsewhere, like under the counter.

For security reasons, we are switching away from doing credit card processing via Aloha EDC software though, and moving towards customer-facing pin pads. The USB MSR are still used for Aloha Loyalty and Stored Value gift cards, but once rolled out, we will no longer use the USB MSR for swiping credit cards.