bigguy

Hey yall. I'm in a Cmputer club/class called EASTlab. We have to make a a project in w/e we decided to leanr. Since ive been doing VB6 for some time now, I decided to make a project in VB6. Problem is cant think of anything. It is supposed to help the community and benefit teh school (hopefully). So far the only thing i can think of is a Resturant Self Order system. but i dont really like that idea yet because i have to have it done by Feb 28 for a convention. I cant think of anything to make so any ideas are helpful. Thanks a bunch yall.

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Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it. - Mark Twain

Destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation.

Infinite Recursion

Where are you from?

Anyhow... How about a generic knowledge base? Broad range of use... Mechanics can use it to diagnose automobile issues, could be used to diagnose medical ailments prior to going to the doctor, forresters could use it for tree identification, restaurants could use it for "secret sauces", etc.

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http://jasonpowers.net

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Infinite Recursion

Where are you from?

Anyhow... How about a generic knowledge base? Broad range of use... Mechanics can use it to diagnose automobile issues, could be used to diagnose medical ailments prior to going to the doctor, forresters could use it for tree identification, restaurants could use it for "secret sauces", administrators/programmers could use it for a how-to or a basic knowledge archive, etc.

__________________
http://jasonpowers.net

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

bigguy

Ok Thanks infinite, btw I am from arkansas. This is what I was thining of. A Resturant Self Order System. Monitors r placed ateach table and they can pick what they want. it then shows up on a monitor in the kitchen, kinda like a fast food place but this is for nice resursants. Problems are some people might not like it becasue the plan was only seeing the waiter/waitress when they brought there to you. I also think this could get very expensive monitors for each table and everything is alot. But I may go ahead and try you idea. If you would like to help me with the other project or something let me know ill use all i can get cause that wouold be alot of coding, with databses, admin rights and everything. But thanks for the idea i'm gonna mull over it till i can make a decison.

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Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it. - Mark Twain

Destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation.

lectricpharaoh

Interestingly enough, this sounds similar to a project a group of mine did for a class a few semesters ago. The idea was to have touch screens at each table, and the customers could place their orders from those screens, as well as use them for entertainment (web browsing, simple games, watching TV), with the entertainment features being 'unlocked' for a variable amount of time depending on the menu items ordered (you could also order plain time). Obviously, we didn't do the TV functionality, but we did the menu database, complete with descriptions and pictures for each item, and the web browsing (just spawned a browser process, so that was easy).

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DaWei

I'm a redneck bubba, myself, from the state just to the southwest of you. If you are anticipating a professional career, I would recommend that you learn to distinguish good grammar, spelling, and vocabulary from your everyday use of the language. Apply the one professionally and use the other jocularly or in everyday conversation with your friends and acquaintances. Just a thought, mind you.

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bigguy

Thanks Dawei, i try to type good, but every now and then i get in a hurry, and just go key crazy. But i actually talk better than i can type, so thats good. The one thing i have trouble with is writing not so good at that. But anyway, lectricpharoh, I need to ask you a few questions.

1. How much do you think 15 tables would cost to do something like this. Consider 1 montior for each table, now I dont think the business would want to spend alot of money on this. So it would need to have a harddrive, CDrom drive, USB for touchscreen, and a NIC to connect to server in kitchen. I'm not sure if this is right but I dont know of any monitors that do this. But anyway if you know of any it would help. At least I think they would all need all that stuff - HDD to store OS on to install Windows on since im doing it in vb6, CD-Rom drive to install stuff, USB for the touch screen, and a NIC to connect to server. Am I missing anything?

2.Did you make it where they could pay at the table with Credit Card and if so. How?

3.How long did your project take.

4.Are there many things on the market like this?


Thanks for your time. Oh yeah Dawei, look I kinda took my time on this one. WOOT WOOT (Y).And If your talking about that you are from Textas, where you from down there. Me and some buddies are planning on coming down there for spring break and we need some Lady Lookout points, so suggest us a few if you dont care.

P.S. Preferabkly not the Senior Citizen Center. lol, im just playijng with you.

__________________
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it. - Mark Twain

Destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation.

lectricpharaoh

I haven't been around much lately, and it's already Feb 28th, but for what it's worth, here's my answers to your questions.I'm not even going to try to answer hardware cost questions, as it will vary so much depending on a) the sort of hardware you need (which again varies depending on implementation), and b) the costs of given pieces of hardware (which will vary by vendor, quantity ordered, and even geographic location, with shipping and everything).

That said, to implement the system we did, you'd need a few things for each table:

• computer and essentials (HD, NIC, etc, though we'd likely skip CD-ROM and floppy drives in a real-world implementation, to hinder people putting 'questionable' stuff on the machines, and maybe even skip USB ports for the same reason)
• touch-screen monitor (many cheap POS systems have such monitors, which with the appropriate drivers just simulate a mouse click at the touched coordinates, making it easy to use them with legacy software)
• TV-tuner card for each computer
• TV-tuner software (typically provided by the vendor of the card)
• some utility software, such as an alternate Windows shell (again for security reasons) and games
• the software we (well, mainly I) wrote

You'd also need a network and a database server, and the software would need to be altered to access the database through the server (in our project, it just used a local database file)
We were planning to, but it proved to be beyond the scope of a hassle to do for a school project (especially for cash- imagine having a cash-scanning machine at each table), so we ended up just having the customer tick a payment choice via radio buttons, and when they placed their order, a staff person would come out and handle the actual transaction.
Hmm, hard to say, since a) it was several terms back, and b) we didn't work continuously on it (other classes and such, you know). Still, I'd say if I was starting from scratch now, it probably wouldn't take more than a week or two, but I should also point out that it wasn't a fully functional system. It was a class project, not a real-world one, so it was more of a model or demonstration of a system rather than the system itself.
I dunno, but I'd guess there are similar things. There are certainly many POS systems that use a networked backend database (I'd expect this to cover the vast majority of POS systems), and aside from a few bells and whistles, that's basically what this thing was.

__________________
And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper-piece harlot.
- Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick

Infinite Recursion

bigguy: The reason I asked where you were from is due to your usage of "yall". I'm from Mississippi... not too many southerners around here.

Anyhow, if you are interested in the Knowledge Base idea, I could help you out... I wrote a KB in C#-MySQL and PL/SQL-Oracle.

The restaurant concept must be a widespread idea. During my senior year in college we had a guy do this as his senior project. You may be able to go wireless using PDAs (cheap palm pilots) connected to the central server in the kitchen. Keep in mind though, you may encounter clients with bad vision or someone who prefers human interaction. (Could also be useful in your defense about machines replacing people).

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http://jasonpowers.net

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

DaWei

I'm in NY now, so I can't treat you to a drink. South Padre is your best spring-break place, but it's about lebenty-zillion miles from Arkansas. From Texarkana to South Padre is probably the longest dimension of the state. In Dallas, go up to the suburb of Addison and scope out the places along Belt Line road. There are noooooooo "senior citizen" joints up there, either . When you go through Texarkana, stop at Cattleman's and have some calf-fries. Ummm ummm good!

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Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
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