4690 OS
| Developer | IBM, Toshiba |
|---|---|
| Working state | Current |
| Initial release | 1993 |
| Latest release | V6R4 / 2014 |
| Marketing target | Point of Sale |
| Available in | English |
| Package manager | Proprietary ASM (Apply Software Maintenance) System |
| Platforms | POS terminal devices |
| Kernel type | Proprietary |
| Default user interface | Cursor-based text interface with some screens spawning a Java-based GUI environment |
| Official website | 4690 Operating System |
4690 Operating System, sometimes shortened to 4690 OS or 4690 is a specially designed Point of Sale operating system, originally sold by IBM; however, in 2012 IBM sold its retail business, including this product, to Toshiba, who now supports it. 4690 is widely used by IBM's retail customers to drive retail systems running their own applications as well as IBM's Application Client Server Environment (ACE), Supermarket Application (SA), General Sales Application (GSA), and Chain Drug Sales Application (CDSA).
It is the follow-on product to IBM 4680 OS, which had been in use by IBM's customers since 1986. The original IBM 4680 OS was based on either Digital Research's Concurrent DOS 286 or FlexOS 286, developed in 1986 as a derivation of Concurrent DOS 286 and introduced in early 1987.
In July 1993 IBM adopted FlexOS version 2.32 as the basis of their IBM 4690 OS Version 1. FlexOS 2.32 supported 286 and 386 modes and had no limit on applications running concurrently.
In 1995 IBM licensed REAL/32 7.50 to bundle it with their 4695 POS terminals.
According to "The Year of the Store?", IHL Consulting Group/RIS News, IBM 4690 OS still had a market share of 12% in the POS register/client market in June 2005, when IBM was starting to phase it out in favour to IBM Retail Environment for SUSE (IRES).
IBM will continue to maintain 4690 OS up to April 2015, with the most recent version released by IBM in May 2012 being IBM 4690 OS Version 6 Release 3 this will be supported until 2017 under special contracts with big name compaines.
Meanwhile, Toshiba has released Toshiba 4690 OS Version 6 Release 4 in January 2014.
Retailers are using the 4690 Operating System for their operations because of its many retail specific and reliability features. In addition to running on IBM hardware, third party vendors have taken advantage of the 4690 features on competitive hardware.
4690 supports a number of Point of Sale (POS) terminal devices, store controller servers, and combination controller/terminals. The 4690 documentation contains a list of supported POS devices, including devices that have been in use over 20 years. The family of IBM USB POS devices that 4690 supports includes keyboards, displays, and cash drawers. 4690 also supports other I/O devices that are designed to and conform to IBM's USB POS device interface specifications. IBM makes interface specifications available to third-party vendors to enable them to connect their devices to POS terminals using RS485, RS232, and USB connections.
...
Wikipedia