how hard would it be to to have a modern cash register accept bitcoins?

[vastbitcoins]

i know at some of the smaller-businesses around here they run on windows

[DannyHamilton]

i know at some of the smaller-businesses around here they run on windows

Give a good computer programmer access to the source code for the cash register and a few weeks of pay, and I'm pretty certain they could get the register accepting bitcoins.  The tricky part would be supplying the newly generated bitcoin address to the customer so they could make the payment.  I suppose you could print it out on a receipt along with a QR-Code.  As long as the customer was using a mobile wallet that could scan QR-Codes, that wouldn't be too bad.

Another idea might be for the customer to use the merchant's website to pre-pay their purchase.  They would print out a coupon with a bar-code at home and bring that printed coupon with them to the store.  Then when they check out, the coupon is scanned at the register the same as any other coupon to make payment.  The customer could then receive cash back as change, or would make up the difference with cash.

[CryptoNames]

With all due respect, cash registers are for cash. Digital currencies don't need those silly/bulky old machines 

If you were thinking of accepting cash and digital currency, and wanted to do this for accounting purposes, I wouldn't use the register (itself) as the medium of aggregation.

[DannyHamilton]

With all due respect, cash registers are for cash. Digital currencies don't need those silly/bulky old machines  

If you were thinking of accepting cash and digital currency, and wanted to do this for accounting purposes, I wouldn't use the register (itself) as the medium of aggregation.

I suspect that the concern has more to do with internal accounting, security, and sales tracking than the specific use of a "silly/bulky old machine".

When someone says "cash register", they typically mean "Point of Sale System".

As such, the "Point of Sale System" typically will need to be able to hold cash for those that continue to pay with cash, track credit and debit card transactions, and in this case track bitcoin transactions as well.

Since the system will need to continue to hold cash (at least until bitcoin completely replaces cash in society), it isn't really silly to call it a "cash register".

Regardless, I suspect the OP is asking about the difficulty in modifying a merchant's current transaction processing infrastructure to include bitcoin transactions along with all the other transaction types they already handle.

[CryptoNames]

With all due respect, cash registers are for cash. Digital currencies don't need those silly/bulky old machines 

If you were thinking of accepting cash and digital currency, and wanted to do this for accounting purposes, I wouldn't use the register (itself) as the medium of aggregation.

I suspect that the concern has more to do with internal accounting, security, and sales tracking than the specific use of a "silly/bulky old machine".

As such, when someone says "cash register", they typically mean "Point of Sale System".

As such, the "Point of Sale System" typically will need to be able to hold cash for those that continue to pay with cash, track credit and debit card transactions, and in this case track bitcoin transactions as well.

Since the system will need to continue to hold cash (at least until bitcoin completely replaces cash in society), it isn't really silly to call it a "cash register".

Regardless, I suspect the OP is asking about the difficulty in modifying a merchant's current transaction processing infrastructure to include bitcoin transactions along with all the other transaction types they already handle.

Gotcha. Well said!

[odolvlobo]

I would like to see a smart card that will sign a bitcoin transaction set up by the POS system. The customer wouldn't need internet access and the POS system never sees the private key. Furthermore, if the card is ever lost, the owner can simply move any funds out of the card's wallet.

[crushtheodds]

I'm sure a POS (Ipad app for example) application shouldn't be that difficult, unless you are specifically referring to a hardware cash register.

Instead of converting a cash register, I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to build a hardware console that integrates with the ipad app as the guts.

So facing the customer would be the ipad (peeking out of the console), showing the custom the transaction being rung up, then on the front facing the retailer would some form of keyboard.