In addition to the power issue Rob mentioned, wedge type readers also require that a keyboard be present. While this is not a problem if you have a keyboard installed, with touch screen selling stations without keyboards, you'd have to add them (thrown under the desk or under counter) for the wedge to work.

Well, geez. Back when I purchased mine from RTS, the only option I had was the keyboard wedge. Thanks for the updated information.

USB devices have become much more widely available in the past few years.

Well, geez. Things change.

Just stumbled upon this post. Apparently missed it before. Anyway, RHEUS, thank you for quoting me in a previous post. To follow up, I just did analysis for April. In our theatres located closer to big cities (Kansas City & St. Louis) credit card sales were OVER 25% OF OUR SALES! In all other markets, credit cards represented at least 15% of sales. If you are unfamiliar with B&B Theatres, we are a company specializing in small markets across Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Our largest market is about 30,000 people (in the specific town, not the entire drawing area) and our smallest is 6,000 people. Anyone not accepting plastic is certainly missing out on a huge revenue stream. Customers will go elsewhere if they can't use their credit cards.

As for the issue of checking the remaining balance on a card, RTS has added the feature where upon swiping the card, the remaining balance is shown on the screen next to the card number. Thus, if a ticket is $5.00 and a gift card has $20.00 on it, on the item list part of the screen, the line item will show the card and then $15.00. And then (5.00) on the total line. Thus, if you want to check a balance, put something on the item list, swipe the gift card, add the amounts. You can easily remove both the gift card deduction and the item from the item list by simply touching it twice. Hopefully this makes sense, it is hard to explain, but VERY EASY in practice.