mamalHardware
The cheapest terminal is the one you own.
Mamal runs in a browser. Nothing to buy, nothing to finance, nothing to send back.
- $0 hardware
- Your printers usually just work1
- Keeps selling when the wifi drops
Runs on what you have
iPads, Android tablets, laptops, old office PCs with a touchscreen. If it has a current browser, it runs the register.
Talks to your printers
Epson and Star receipt and kitchen printers, found on your network automatically and driven directly.
Nothing to give back
Leave us and every device on your counter still works, because none of it came from us.
Registers
Four ways to put a register on a counter.
Photo
iPad on a counter stand, order screen visible, busy counter behind
iPad
Installs to the home screen from Safari. Staff never see a browser.
Photo
Android tablet on a simple stand at a takeaway counter
Android tablet
The cheapest way to add a station. Chrome is all it needs.
Photo
Desktop PC with touchscreen at a pizzeria counter
Windows or Mac
Plenty of counters run an old office PC and a touchscreen.
Photo
Kitchen display mounted above a pass, tickets visible
Kitchen displays
Ordinary Android TV boxes. A KDS should not cost more than the oven timer.
Screenshot to capture
Printer discovery screen showing found devices with model names and a Test print button
We wrote the protocols ourselves.
Most POS companies reach printers through a vendor SDK. That is why their hardware lists are short and their prices are high.
- Epson ESC/POS thermal, and the many clones that speak it
- Epson TM-U220 impact, the kitchen workhorse
- Star line mode and raster, including the TSP100 fleet
- Cloud-direct printing, where the printer talks to us with nothing installed
- Cash drawers off the printer, and USB bump bars
Card readers
The one piece you can’t bring from home.
A payment terminal has to be certified against a gateway. It is the one restriction in this industry that protects you rather than the vendor.
Photo
Card reader beside a tablet register on a counter, guest tapping a card
Ours run over a documented cloud API, so there is no SDK and nothing extra on your counter. See payments.
Questions, answered plainly
Hardware FAQ
Will my existing printers work?
Usually, and here is the honest detail behind that word. We implement Epson and Star’s published protocols from our own specifications, cross-checked against several independent sources, and every build is tested against a byte-level conformance suite and an emulator that behaves like the real hardware. That covers the overwhelming majority of receipt and kitchen printers in restaurants, because most of the market speaks one of those two dialects or a clone of them. Tell us the model on your counter and we will tell you exactly how it behaves with Mamal before you commit to anything.
What happens when the internet goes down?
The register keeps taking orders. It installs from the browser like an app and keeps its data on the device, so orders, splits and tenders carry on being written locally while the connection is out. When it returns, the queue replays in order with stable identifiers, so nothing is duplicated and nothing is lost. This is the demo we most like giving, and we will happily unplug the router on a call to show you.
Do I need to buy anything to get started?
A tablet or PC you almost certainly already have, and a printer you probably already have. The only category you may need to buy into is a card reader, because payment terminals have to be certified against a specific gateway. Everything else is deliberately commodity hardware, bought from whoever you like at whatever price you can find, and it stays yours.
How many devices can I run?
As many as you want. There is no per-terminal or per-device charge, which is worth checking against whatever you are running now, because per-device pricing is one of the most common ways a POS bill grows without anyone deciding that it should.
Tell us what’s on your counter.
We’ll tell you what works.
- Mamal implements the published Epson and Star printing protocols and is verified against a byte-level conformance suite. Behaviour on any specific printer model can be confirmed with us before purchase.