Technical Stuff
Updated January 10, 2007

Hardware

OS System

Backups

Hardware

Cases &  Power Supply
Space is always at a premium. The use of mid tower is usually a good choice. It should have enough bays to carry 2 hd's 1 cd-rom and 1 floppy.

Main Boards
The main board may be of any reputable manufacturer that supports the chosen processor. It should have at least 1 ISA slot for a communications controller . It is not recommended that on board peripherals such as video card be used. Unix does not like to share main memory with the video chip.

When programming the BIOS remember to disable any integrated peripherals that may conflict with add on components such as modems. In the advanced setup force the use of ISA interrupts for cards that use them.

Processor
Since cost savings are important to the Client, the use of AMD Duron/Athalon is recommended.

Memory
A minimum of 64mb is required while 128mb is recommended for the OS. DineAmix apps require 3-5mb per station.

Video Cards
Any VESA compliant video card with a minimum of 4mb of memory is recommended. When a multi-Console card is present in the system, the video card must be capable of being turned off. Confirm this by using the Boundless diagnostics disk. S3 series are compatible with Multi-Console cards.

Modems
Any PCI NON windows modem should work.

Legacy OS Modems
The Unix serial interface requires a separate address & interrupt for COMM. ports.  This  mandates the use of an internal ISA modem or an external modem connected to one of the onboard ISA ports.  As these modems are becoming more rare these days I have specified the following. This device is readily available and according to AOpen they will  continue to manufacture this item.

  • Aopen FM/56 ISA ITU/2
  • EMJ Part# 1A56IFM
The internal Modem can be be configured with the following settings. Make sure the dip switches on the modem card are set according to your selection.
  • COM1 - INT. 4 3f8 This setting is not recommended. COM1 is usually used for the touch screen controller or for a serial communications card set at INT 4.
  • COM2 - INT 3 2f8. This setting is fine. However COM2 may be used by another serial device such as a preparation printer.
  • COM3 - INT10 3e8. Not recommended.
  • COM4 - INT 11 2e8. This is the preferred configuration for OSR5 and Linux. Do not use this setting for XENIX. Use COM2 instead.
Adding the modem to the Kernel. For Open Server 5.X
  • Logon as the root user.
  • # scoadmin 
  • Select Networks-> Serial Manager. Remove any unnecessary settings and add IBM COMM.'s for COM1 & 2 and HP COMM.'s for 3 and 4. When you exit you will be asked to rebuild the kernel. Rebuild the kernel and reboot system for these changes to take effect.
Most likely the modem will be used for incoming support calls. You now need to configure the modem and enable the port.
 
  • Connect to modem using "# omit -clb /dev/tty?a 19200" where ? is the COMM. number. You will see "omit connected", this indicated proper communications with the modem.
  • You must set the modem to pick up the phone on the first ring. To do this type "ATS0=1". 
  • Disable Echo and result codes. "ATE0Q1" after this command you will no longer see and keyboard input but rest assured the system is still working.
  • Save your changes to profile 0. "AT&W0"
  • Exit the omit comm. program. "^c". You will be returned to the root prompt.
  • Enable the port by issuing the command "enable tty?A". Note the capital a in tty instead of the lowercase 'a' used when connecting with "omit"
Plug the line connector on the mode into the wall jack and dial the number to confirm the modem is picking up the phone.

Hard Disk Drive & Backup Drive
The OSR 5 System requires 300mb of disk space while Linux almost 1.4gb. DineAmix Software requires less than 100mb and user data may grow at a rate of 100mb per year. This being said any 10gb+ drive will do. It is almost impossible to purchase a smaller drive these days.

Clients rarely make use of tape drives for backups. We recommend the use of a second hard drive as a backup medium. In the event of a disk drive failure the second drive can be strapped as a master and they are back in business. This is a simple and cost effective means of providing backups but is of no value in the event of theft. A third removable drive may be used for off site backups.

Floppy Disk Drive
Any 3.1/4" floppy drive. Used mostly for driver installation. 

CD rom
Any 8x CD rom or greater speed will do the trick. Software updates and shipped on CD rom format media. CD rom's are not automatically detected by the OSR5 OS. Use the following steps to configure your CD rom. 

  • "# scoadmin"
  • Hardware Kernel Manager
  • CD-ROM and WORM
  • 2 Add an EIDE CD-ROM
  • Chose the controller and master/slave setting according to your configuration.
  • You will be asked to rebuild the kernel. Do so and reboot for your changes to take effect.
Keyboards
The POS systems are usually located in computer unfriendly environments. I recommend the use of a good quality keyboard such as Keytronics or Cherry.

Communications
When more COMM. ports are required then the 2 supported by the main board, you will have to add a communications card. Since these cards are used to drive slow devices such as printers or pole displays. the use of non intelligent cards is permitted. Typically  a Digi-Board PC4 or PC8 is used. Take note that these are ISA bus cards and require an appropriate mother board.

Multi-Console
This technology has seen a few of the players disappear. Initially DineAmix used AMR (Advanced Micro Research) devices. These ISA cards are no longer manufactured. Next DineAmix chose AT&T's Boundless technology. These devices are no longer manufactured. Now we use Max-Speed controllers. These card can be purchased with a PCI bus card eliminating the need for a main board with many ISA slots.
 


OS System

Top

Linux Red Hat and Fedora are the only currently supported Operating Systems.
SCO OSR5.X/Xenix are now (Legacy)
Backups

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Xenix

Too install a new disk as a second backup you must follow these steps;

In House:

1) Create bootable floppy diskette using DineAmix supplied images on Linux/Xenix computer.

Linux: "# cat xnx.boot > /dev/fd0" OR
Xenix: "# dd if=xnx.boot of=/dev/fd0 bs=18k"

2) Jumper the  BACKUP drive with a  MASTER configuration.

3) Install BACKUP drive into your inhouse computer.

4) Manualy set backup disk geometry in BIOS. (see Step 8 below).

5) Insert Xenix bott diskette in drive and restart system .

6) Install the Xenix OS onto the new BACKUP drive.

Client Site:

1) Install 2 removable disk case into the Clients PC.

2) Install the EXISTING drive into the top case slot.

3) Jumper the BACKUP drive as a MASTER. (should already be done)

4) Install the new BACKUP drive into the second case slot.

5) Connect the EXISTING drive case connector to the PRIMARY IDE interface.

6) Connect the BACKUP drive case to the SECONDARY IDE interface.

7) Start the computer and enter the BIOS.

8) NOTE: Xenix has disk size limit of 2gb. 
Manually configure the drive to be equal in size to the existing drive. This is achived by maching the existing Cyl/Heads/Sector configuration. If this is not possible, you will need to reducing the number of Cylinders  that are specified by the drive manufacturer.  Always divide the number of existing Cylindres by a factor of two. Too calculate the number of Cylinders required, lets look at the following example;

2gb = 2147483648 bytes

Assume the secors of the new drive are 63 and 16 heads.

heads = 2147483648 / 16 / 63 / 512

Answer = 4161 Cyls

Note 4161 is not an even number. Take the original number of Cyls of the
drive and divide by 2 until the number of Cyls are less than 4161.

9) Save your configuration and restart the computer.

10) Logon as the root user.

11) Create a "backup" account if one does not already exists. 
"# mkuser backup" and follow the prompts.

12) Move to "/usr/backup" directory and untar DineAmix supplied scripts.
"# cd /usr/backup"
"# tar xvf /dev/fd0"
"# tar xvf xnx.scripts"

13) Move "comptime" program to "/usr/bin".
"# mv comptime /usr/bin"

14) Logon as the backup user and perform a complete backup.

The backup program will create entries as required to perform nightly backups.