Par POS4 Workstation
Last edited: December 15, 2003 08:14 AM

This document is based on a preliminary evaluation of the Par POS4 Model M4247 Workstation manufactured by ParTech.  The POS4 is a Pentium 166MHZ CPU, with an LCD touchscreen.  It comes with 16MB of memory, two serial ports, one parallel port, IDE hard disk, and coax network port.  The display is adjustable, allowing the screen to pivot to the optimal angle.  The cash drawer port, customer display, and mag stripe reader are not supported by Touch Menus at this time.  There are no add-on slots available.  A floppy port exists to allow an optional floppy disk to be plugged in using a proprietary floppy connector.
Video

The LCD touchscreen is 640×480, but TouchPro’s 8×17 video mode is not directly supported.  This does not cause any errors, but causes some screen components to display poorly.  For example, buttons have vertical lines through them.
Touch

Touch hardware is made by MicroTouch and the standard DOSTouch driver is used to provide mouse emulation to Touchnet.  Touch is routed through COM3 IRQ12.  See Boot Files for the exact command syntax.
Network

A standard coax port provides network connectivity using NE2000 compatible drivers set to access the port through IOAddress 300 and IRQ5.  See Boot Files for the exact command syntax.
Powerup Sequence

On powerup, the BIOS provides the normal option to enter CMOS.  See the CMOS section for more details.  Additionally, it provides two buttons in the lower right corner of the screen and says Waiting for Setup Button.  If the user presses No or waits about three seconds, bootup will continue.  If the user presses Setup, a special touch sensitive CMOS setup screen will appear.  At this time there are no options that need changing, so the user should press Esc then Tab to exit the screen.

At this point there is about a twenty second delay before DOS starts booting.  It is important that the user not assume the workstation is locked up and reboot prior to letting it continue the boot process.
CMOS

Press DEL to enter setup.  A modified AMI windowed menu is used for CMOS changes.  There are no changes required to run Touch Menus software.  A Detect IDE option is available when installing a custom hard disk.  Press Esc and select Save Changes and Exit when done.
Power

Power is supplied by a 9.5A 50 watt external transformer from I.T.E. Model PW300.  A power switch is located on the bottom of the unit on the right side about halfway back.
Ports

    *      COM1 – DB9, IRQ4
    *      COM2 – DB9, IRQ3
    *      COM3 – Reserved internally for touch using IRQ12
    *      LPT1 – Standard, can be configured in CMOS for EPP communications
    *      Keyboard – PS2
    *      Network – BNC

Boot Files

Config.Sys for Workstation

DEVICE=C:DOSHIMEM.SYS

DEVICE=C:DOSEMM386.EXE NOEMS

DEVICEHIGH=C:DOSRAMDRIVE.SYS 300 /E

BUFFERS=30,0

FILES=100

DOS=HIGH,UMB

LASTDRIVE=Z

FCBS=16,0

STACKS=9,256

Autoexec.Bat for Workstation

@ECHO OFF

PROMPT $p$g

PATH C:;C:DOS;C:LANTASTI;C:TOOLS;C:UTILITY

C:PARDEBUGVGA     *      Debugvga.exe
    *      Dostouch.exe
    *      Dostouch.ini
    *      Dostouch.ovl

Cables

The serial ports were not tested with our cables, however standard DB9 serial adapters as used with the Liberty should work fine.
Revisions

8/11/99 rw

    1.  Initial Release