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Device types

A wide range of devices can be used in the system, such as POS terminals, fiscal registers, card terminals, printers, keyboards and many others. Any device that is connected to the system needs a driver to control it. A wide range of devices needs a wide range of drivers.

Many similar devices, however, can be controlled by generic drivers. In Tillypad XL, these similar devices are grouped into device types, each of which is associated with a generic driver (also referred to as a software module) that can be used to control any device of that type. The device types defined in the system can provide one or a number of generic interfaces:

• Payment authorisation,

• Privilege authorisation,

• Customer display,

• Fiscal register,

• ID reader,

• Keyboard,

• Message receipt,

• Terminal,

• Port gateway,

• Relay,

• Printer,

• Surveillance device,

• Remote terminal,

• Scales,

• Service provider.

Note

By using a port gateway, a device can be physically connected to one computer while the driver is running on an entirely different computer. For example, a printer can be physically connected to a PDA terminal using Bluetooth, while the printer driver is running elsewhere on a desktop PC.

The device types used in Tillypad XL are specified in the Device types directory. These specifications define the types of interface they provide and the software modules (drivers) required to control them.