Calling all software and programming professionals!

[CubeATwork]

Good Afternoon and Happy Monday Pt. 3!

 

My name is Taylor, and I am the only sucker at a small, family-owned business with any experience with electronics, computers, and software.

 

We use a POS (Point of Sale) system called Touchstone 2000 (originally made and sold by Dimasys, bought out by Infor years ago)

 

There is no official support left for this software; no one at Infor has even heard of the software. The distributor that sold us this software went out of business years ago.

 

We are looking for ANYONE who has ever worked on, dealt with, or even USED Touchstone 2000 or previously worked at Dimasys. We are desperate for any assistance available.

 

We are preparing to migrate to a new POS/ERP/CRM, but we need historical data from TS (we know it can export to flat ASCII and .dif format). However, throughout the years of using the software hosted on our local server, we've had to replace and repair the server a few times, and now we are dealing with TS denying us access to administrative functions. We suspect this is related to migrating the OS, programs, and data from previous servers, but are unable or unsure how to confirm. Once we remediate the access issue, we are mostly set on migrating the data to the new system.

 

PLEASE! If you can spread the word to other forums, hit up some contacts, and/or offer ANY expertise and experience, we would be eternally grateful. We are at the end of our ropes and have exhausted all of our own resources and avenues.

 

 

[GuiltySpark_]

Its funny, googling "Dimasys + Touchstone 2000" results in exactly two results. One is this thread from this very forum in 2021.

 

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1365927-migrating-windows-server-2003-to-new-hardware/

 

The other is this guys Linkedin page. 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hibert/?locale=en

 

Maybe you could try directly contacting either OP of that thread or this guy on Linkedin, otherwise it seems the internet has all but forgotten that software.

 

Good luck!

[CubeATwork]

2 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Its funny, googling "Dimasys + Touchstone 2000" results in exactly two results. One is this thread page thread from this very forum in 2021.

 

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1365927-migrating-windows-server-2003-to-new-hardware/

 

The other is this guys Linkedin page. 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hibert/?locale=en

 

Maybe you could try directly contacting either OP of that thread or this guy on Linkedin, otherwise it seems the internet has all but forgotten that software.

 

Good luck!

OP is me on my personal accoutn years ago. I'll double-check the linkedin account. Thanks mate.

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, CubeATwork said:

We are preparing to migrate to a new POS/ERP/CRM, but we need historical data from TS (we know it can export to flat ASCII and .dif format). However, throughout the years of using the software hosted on our local server, we've had to replace and repair the server a few times, and now we are dealing with TS denying us access to administrative functions.

You might be SOL. A lot of these POS products are proprietary to a level that only the original developer would be able to do anything.

This is from archive.org in 2004. Which means your POS software is likely 20+ years old.

And this is the earliest page for dimasys dot com (currently domain squatted), 1999 that returns something that isn't garbage. Nxtrend was acquired in 2004, and ceased to exist. Funny enough Nxtrend has a fandom page . https://erphistory.fandom.com/wiki/NxTrend

 

https://www.sdcexec.com/sourcing-procurement/procurement-software/press-release/10309476/nxtrend-buys-dimasys

This is basically the only piece of information I can find without using archive.org

 

Honestly it looks like it's a victim of corporate raiding in the 2000's, so anyone who knows how to do anything with the software probably hasn't worked at the surviving company for over a decade.

 

So I have two potential solutions for you, they both suck but you might be forced to do one of them:

a) Start over, export whatever you can, even if you have to automate a macro to use the ERP software's UI to capture all the data slowly. This is the brute force strategy.

b) Reverse engineer the software. Make a copy of everything in a virtual machine, and have someone debug/decompile it to find the administrative functions.

 

Usually what I've had to do to "break in" to someone's software was actually to find the user database, and swap the username of a known user and the administrative user. However I'm going to guess that ERP software might not store everything in a standard database format, and might actually have hardcoded administrative access if it's actually that old.

 

The one time I had to deal with someone's ERP/POS software, it was written in Microsoft FoxPro, and was thus actually easy to just edit the login script to just accept anything as the password. That person was basically in the same boat as you, where nobody has heard of the software, and they continued to use it by just copying the data from computer to computer.

 

 

 

[CubeATwork]

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

You might be SOL. A lot of these POS products are proprietary to a level that only the original developer would be able to do anything.

This is from archive.org in 2004. Which means your POS software is likely 20+ years old.

And this is the earliest page for dimasys dot com (currently domain squatted), 1999 that returns something that isn't garbage. Nxtrend was acquired in 2004, and ceased to exist. Funny enough Nxtrend has a fandom page . https://erphistory.fandom.com/wiki/NxTrend

 

https://www.sdcexec.com/sourcing-procurement/procurement-software/press-release/10309476/nxtrend-buys-dimasys

This is basically the only piece of information I can find without using archive.org

 

Honestly it looks like it's a victim of corporate raiding in the 2000's, so anyone who knows how to do anything with the software probably hasn't worked at the surviving company for over a decade.

 

So I have two potential solutions for you, they both suck but you might be forced to do one of them:

a) Start over, export whatever you can, even if you have to automate a macro to use the ERP software's UI to capture all the data slowly. This is the brute force strategy.

b) Reverse engineer the software. Make a copy of everything in a virtual machine, and have someone debug/decompile it to find the administrative functions.

 

Usually what I've had to do to "break in" to someone's software was actually to find the user database, and swap the username of a known user and the administrative user. However I'm going to guess that ERP software might not store everything in a standard database format, and might actually have hardcoded administrative access if it's actually that old.

 

The one time I had to deal with someone's ERP/POS software, it was written in Microsoft FoxPro, and was thus actually easy to just edit the login script to just accept anything as the password. That person was basically in the same boat as you, where nobody has heard of the software, and they continued to use it by just copying the data from computer to computer.

 

 

 

It stores using 3 databases. SQL2000, SQL7, and Btrieve 6.15. It's so cursed. Both the administrator accounts and standard users are locked out of higher administrative functions, including the export function. Also, this system is constantly live and I'd like lose my job and be sued for destruction of proprietary information if I tried my luck at account swapping. 

 

The whole system is held together with duct tape, hopes, and daily prayers to the Machine Spirit. I kinda feel like I've been set up to fail.