EPOS Customer Display (Excel XP)

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Hey there folks,
I am building an EPOS and it is going to need a customer display, i will obtain one from eBay most likely, my problem is that once i have the item, how will i get it to show the actual totals that i have, the EPOS system i have programmed is made through Excel, so is there any code within excel or some way of using shell extensions i could use?

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I am a little confused on what you need. What is an “EPOS” and what do you want Excel to do with it?

Steve

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I suspect it is an Electronic Point of Sale, which sounds like it is going to need Excel controlling some hardware…

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I assumed people would know, my apologies, yes what i need is this:
Assuming Subtotal, tender and change are in cells A1-A3 respectively, i need it to firstly send the signal to (probably the) serial port so that it can be read by the LCD display, the subtotal would read on the top line, then, send the signal for the tender and change to the top and bottom lines of the LCD display, when i press a button, this may require me to know the address of the serial port pins, but i am unsure, any help appreciated, an example of parralel port control is shown below.

Program lpt1_output;

Uses Dos;

Var
addr:word;
data:byte;
e:integer;

Begin
addr:=MemW[$0040:$0008];
Val(ParamStr(1),data,e);
Port[addr]:=data;
End.

(http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/parallel_output.html#circuithow)

I also want to operate a simple 12v circuit that will open the cash drawer when i click the tender button, suggestions?

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I use Excel for downloading data (from some equipment we manufacture) using serial comms. I searched high and low for some method, and eventually settled for WSC from MarshallSoft.
For hardware switching, you could either using a plug-in card for the PC, or use the serial port to drive a piece of kit. Let me know if you want some pointers to the hardware side and I’ll see what I can dig out.

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Hmm would be appreciated, the only thing i’ve got on that right now is a parallel port plugin device which can apparently operate a circuit, but i am unsure about the details as the instructions were in German and very vague from what i read…

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There seems to be plenty of choice out there for serial-port-controlled switches – for example this from Audon.
If you want to search yourself, a Google for
switch relay output serial pc
brings up a fair number of hits.

It may all come down to your budget. If you are going to try direct drive from a parallel or serial port pin, I’d be very careful about keeping what you are switching isolated from the pc.

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Thanks i will have a look-see

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