UIPS or not (three little power cuts)

[Refugee]

I took my other half for some retail therapy and we were blessed with some distressed manager therapy in the bargain department

Suddenly all the lights went out for something like half a second just before the last item from our basket was to be beeped and then as the great sigh of the air con computer crashing began a second little power cut happened and then deathly silence. You get it there is no UIPS on the server.

Then there was the first wave of distressed managers equipped with big red keys that had to be stuck in under the desktop of each checkout lane in order to get them back on line again and then...
Another little power cut this time closer to a second in duration and then there ware more distressed managers and they had to reboot the whole lot again  
After all that there was a backup copy of the bar codes so that only that last item was the only one that needed to be beeped. That last item was from the bargain shelf with a 50% discount

The discount store we had previously visited was in total darkness with the car park almost empty as we passed by on the way home.

[boater sam]

Thought many were still on gas. Gas power for computers would be an innovation.

[Refugee]

You can indeed run computers on gas however it is spectacular if they "crash".
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=didcot...ation+fire&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=I0OadhLARP3uCM%253A%252Ch1ULXqPUBmMovM%252C_&usg=AFrqEzeCXAknEaC2i9imaub9WZmg_0OJmQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia6bf_oIjdAhVkIsAKHY2XAnkQ9QEwBXoECAUQBg#imgrc=I0OadhLARP3uCM:

[Murphyv310]

Acht.... Too reliant on computers.
All you need is a till like in years gone by.
I've still got my cash box from the business, never gave any problems nor needed a back up supply.

[Refugee]

Some of those manual tills used to be decorated all over like a work of art.
Later ones were electric but without computers.
Thar dose of distressed manager therapy must have cost them almost as much as buying a UIPS....

[Murphyv310]

I at one time repaired the POS tills for Clydesdale. They were made by a company called Microsell, they had 7 inch drives and uploaded sales to head office at night, talk about reliability.... not, this was from the mid 80,s to when they went bust. I kept a spare till at home and drives plus a kit of panels. Threw them out many years later as Clydesdale didn't want them when they bit the dust.

[Refugee]

I also did for a couple of years repair EPOS kit for a company that had a contract with a chain of burger bars.
They were testing a till for a drive thru counter and it kept crashing until one of us spotted that there was no screen on the SMPSU.
They were hiring power line monitoring boxes and all sorts when all they needed was a proper engineer to look at it for a couple of minutes.

[Murphyv310]

Too true Simon.
The POS tills Clydesdale had contained a very big SMPS. I remember after they went bust using one to make a really good bench supply.
It had four outputs 5v @ 15a, plus and minus 12v @ 5a & 36v @ 3a. A really meaty supply and the most reliable part of the till. I think I only replaced one in 8 years and 9 branches that I covered.

[Refugee]

We used to fix hundreds of printers from them and also the huge printers from the accounts departments.
The company we worked for closed and some of the work was moved to another site so we had a big move and a redundancy chequ and a slightly different selection of stuff to work on.
I have still got a few bits from my cash till days mostly PSUs. Full SMPSUs came with touch screen. The early ones were a laminated transformer with two SM regulators. We only did the bits that were swapped out leaving the belt drives to another company.
Printers from burger bars used to get fat in the power connectors and go bang sometimes quite loudly.