sending hexadecimal control characters, how to?

[Richmond Mathewson]

On 12/4/09 9:59 AM, Phil Davis wrote:
> Hey Andre -
> What if the software is published in a different country? Then it 
> would seem like the Brazilian control freak... ummm, government 
> wouldn't be able to control it, at least not in the same way.

A "control freak" mentality is something that is inevitable in what we 
have to, however unpleasant it may sound,
term 'criminalised' societies where cheating is endemic, such as 
Bulgaria and Brazil (both countries are very high
on the list of places where a lot of banks and businesses just won't go).

Of course, one has to hope that the 'control freak' government is being 
control freaky just so the MPs of the ruling
party can feather their own nests . . .  :)

And, in Bulgaria, at least, the really efficient, big crooks, are always 
about 2 jumps ahead of the government; so a lot
of the control freakiness is a waste of time and money and just serves 
to make things a pain for the small people who
are trying to make an honest living.

>
> Food for thought.
> Phil Davis
>
>
> Peter Alcibiades wrote:
>> Andre Garzia-3 wrote:
>>> ....here, due to law, if a software is to interface with a
>>> receipt printer, then you need to "approve" your software with the
>>> goverment......Is this so in other countries?
>>>
>>> Andre
>>>
>>
>> Not in the UK.  You will have to comply as a business with the 
>> various sale
>> of goods regulations, and of course with the tax regulations, but how 
>> you do
>> it is up to you.  You probably do have to give receipts if asked, but
>> handwritten ones will be acceptable.
>>
>> Not that I'm going into the POS business!  This is a one-off.  But if 
>> you
>> do, you don't have to get your stuff approved by anyone, as far as I 
>> know.
>> Peter
>>

I am quite (pleasantly) surprised to find that, for once, the over-regulated
British Isles are lagging behind Brazil!

Here in Bulgaria you can only print receipts from a special 
receipt-printing machine
which is sealed with a jolly lead seal by the government. As my business 
is really
very small potatoes I write out my receipts by hand.

Even big businesses, when you buy something from them, have to attach a 
silly, little
receipt from their receipt machine to all the stuff printed out from 
their computer system.

The receipt printers here are extremely primitive insofar as they cannot 
interface with
anything; they have to be physically dismantled to get at the small 
hard-drive inside them.
That involves breaking the lead seal.