Possuming a POS system?

Factual Questions
1

Hi all,
I’m a tech and was on a site for blockbuster the other day. As a contractor you get the most exposure to how it’s done somewhere else as you are perpetually gunning for your next pay-check. This is a geek question btw so if you’re curious keep reading, but If not, try a different thread as I don’t expect alot of relevant “bites” in this fishing expedition.

I was on the phone with tech support trying to wrap my head around a procedure that I might possibly have to do if the POS system didn’t take to it’s newest PCI card so well. He consistently referred to this procedure as “Possuming” and it involved making a floppy disk with something like a POS OS on it. I’ve done many POS systems and even more stand-alone computers, but I’ve never heard of such a process before.

When I got back home I Googgled 6 ways from Sunday the topic, but could not locate anything relevant to the procedure mentioned. Anybody ever hear of such a thing?

2

I have worked on them too. I have never heard of ‘possuming’ anything when it comes to computers.

3

Well, given that it’s Blockbuster’s POS system, I’m not the least bit surprised you may have to take, cough unorthodox measures to fix the computer.

Cite: I am a Blockbuster employee.

4

Maybe he was talking about Possum or POSIM, both of which are brands of POS systems.

That, or the manual update process is needed because the device was “playing possum” - otherwise, I have no clue.

5

Could it be a corruption of POSTing? (power-on self-test)

6

I’ve got a quarter century in information management and I’ve never heard the term in any context of troubleshooting. zoltar7 may be onto something though.

7

I was going to offer that it could be just some jargon specific to their workplace, and not the industry–and the tech just took for granted that someone would already be up to speed on the phraseology.