Wrenchman Inc.                

Wrenchman Design History

Wrenchman, Inc. was incorporated in Minnesota in 1981. We are a product design and development company, specializing in high speed data communications, primarily in the Point of Sale market. In addition to our  POSio product development, our designs include:

Design: PC Controller for IBM 4683

Wrenchman designed and manufactured a PC based 4680 Serial I/O Channel Controller. This product allowed a PC to control up to four IBM 4683 Model 2 POS Registers. Time from concept through production: 8 weeks.

Design: Passive Data Collection System

Wrenchman designed a Passive Data Collection Platform to support NCR 1255, NCR 2126, NCR 2127, IBM 3680 and IBM 4680 Data Capture. This system used a Motherboard to buffer and filter store loop data provided by two Daughterboards. Use of the Daughterboard front ends allowed the system to be expanded to cover the major POS platforms. The system supports SDLC and Proprietary Protocols at data rates of 38.4 Kbps to 1.25 Mbps. The NCR 1255 system alone has achieved over 5 Million dollars in client sales and formed the foundation for a major national coupon system. Development time from concept though production: 12 weeks.

Design: PC Controller Replacement System:

Wrenchman designed a PC based Controller Replacement for the NCR 1255 POS system. This system allowed a PC with application software to replace a dedicated NCR mini-computer. All store loop communications were handled by a dedicated Multi-Loop Fault Tolerant Controller. This system allowed a Secondary Controller to maintain fully synchronized operation with a Primary Controller. Should the Primary Controller fail, the Secondary Controller automatically assumed control. The system cross-over was designed to be seamless, without the loss of any data, even if this occurred in the middle of a transaction. This product supported up to 4 store loops (64 registers) and was designed for high volume stores. This product has been installed system wide by the largest grocer in Alaska and was used in support of the Army-Air Force Exchange Services. (AAFES). This product was rolled out nationwide by several supermarket chains in the Republic of South Africa.

Design: IBM Scanner/Scale Interface

Wrenchman designed and manufactured an external Scanner/Scale Interface for the 4683 POS Register system. This interface allowed a NCR Scanner/Scale to operate as an integrated peripheral on the 4683 family of registers. This interface resulted in over 4 million dollars worth of client product sales. This interface has been accepted by IBM as a 3rd party attachment and is currently being maintained by IBM Field Service. Time from concept to prototypes: 9 weeks.

Design: 468x Replacement Board

Wrenchman designed a 486 based replacement board for the IBM 4683 and 4684 ECR. This board converts these terminals to an Open PC based platform while providing support for the IBM 4683 peripherals. This design, developed originally for Dataserv, was later purchased by ICL Retail Systems. Time from receipt of specification to pilot production boards: 10 weeks.

Design: Printer Replacement Interfaces

Wrenchman produced a POSio Printer Interface that allows an Axiohm 7193 or 7156 Thermal Printer to replace a DataChecker Alpha 4 printer. This product was distributed by ICL.

Wrenchman created a family of POSio Printer Interfaces that allow an Axiohm 7156 Thermal Printer to replace IBM Model 2, Model 3, or Model 4 printers, thus greatly enhancing ECR terminal speed. These products were distributed nationally by R2 Corporation.

Summary:

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