It begins to look as if it soon won’t be possible to go on a shopping expedition without interfacing to Unix. Following NCR Corp’s introduction of a new line of point-of-sale systems based on adaptations of the Tower and Unix earlier this year, the other major US player in the electronic point of sale systems market, National Semiconductor Corp’s Datachecker Systems Inc this week announced a string of new products at the Food Marketing Institute in Chicago, most notably the Epoch Series, a four-model family of 32-bit Unix supermicros for point-of-sale applications, spreadsheets and word processing. The company also announced its Portal/X system software which integrates the Epoch machine with Datachecker’s 1600 or 1700 controller. The program acts as a focal point for other in-store applications such as direct store deliver, pharmacy management and price verification. The firm also added systems for electronic funds transfer debit, coupon validation and security cheque card scanning. Other new hardware includes the 2200 KeyScan Terminal for small grocers and drugstores, and a sidebar acquisition barcode reader and MS-260 Compact Scanner.
