You're just trolling me now aren't you? Do you not realize that you don't need to even worry about Bitcoin from the POS level and that that can all be handled by the backend?
how do you think gift cards work? Do you think they needed to reprogram every credit card processing machine in the entire world? Or is it much more likely that they just set up a backend to return some data?
Also, don't try to tell me that you can't get data back from a request by a credit card processing machine. That's why it's called a 'request'. Especially in the case of debit cards, it asks the server if the user has or does not have enough funds to cover. Why couldn't that just as simply be a MtGox account with a mtgox payment server running?
I understand the novelty of dealing with bitcoins directly, but it's a waste of time. It's like requiring the customer or waiter to cook the food instead of just ordering it to the kitchen.
...this is a much simpler and much more scalable solution for main stream acceptance of bitcoins
For something that is 'much simpler' it sure seems more complicated to understand what you're getting at and how it would work.
So you're proposing a system for paying with bitcoins (indirectly) *if you have an account with a specific provider* such as for example mtgox ?
What does the merchant have to do to support each new popular bitcoin wallet provider which springs up?
What costs are there in your solution for the merchant and for the wallet provider?
I still don't get where the account-balance checking/authorisation logic would reside.
The 'local middle-man processing service' sets it up to talk to mtgox APIs etc?
Does this mean your solution is completely independent of the banks - or because the POS device already talks to the banks, it has to go through their systems?
What exactly does the customer give to the merchant, a card with the provider-specific account code plus what?.. name, expiry, security code just like a cc?
Pragmatic as it may be to get some merchants on board who are shy of the additional hardware - it feels to me like the casascius POS would be the much nicer long term solution (for the provider/exchange-agnostic bitcoiner anyway)