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Having been in data collection for the past umpteen years, I have seen a lot of terminals come and go. From the earliest Symbol batch units, up to the current crop of WM 6 terminals - a lot has changed.

One thing that remains constant though, is the need for “good old workhorse terminals” for the Warehousing and Distribution market. There are literally thousands of Intermec, Symbol and Teklogix units who are old enough to vote and in some cases even drink, that are still the mainstay of high volume Warehouse/Order pick/Ship operations. Why? Because they are simple, and they simply work.

I cut my teeth on a lot of these very terminals: the Symbol LRT 3805’s, Norand 1700’s and the Intermec Antares lines. They weren’t fancy, they ran a version of DOS, and usually all relied on VT/IBM Terminal Emulation to make them useful. Recently, an Intermec 2435 came across my desk, and I was reminded of the simple utility and reliability of these devices.

The Intermec 2435 was kind of a plateau device for it’s type. Yes, it feels like you can hammer nails with it, but you also have the sense that it can last for years of dropping and getting bumped around in a warehouse and not go on the fritz if it has a rough day. This terminal features a clear 31 line character display (21 wide) that is easy to read and refreshes quickly. Most TE programs are concise and not verbose, with a quick Scan-Prompt cadence to them, and the 2435 is perfectly suited for that.

Since it is a relatively modest terminal, the battery life is excellent, often lasting a shift and one half of moderate scanning, and even longer if docked in a desktop or vehicle mount charging cradle. Many units shipped with a built in long range scanner (over 6′) and all 2435’s came with built in 802.11b WiFi radios.

Although there was a freezer option, the standard terminal is rated for use from -4 to 122F, which covers 80% of use situations, in my experience. Most implementations I was involved with used the 39 key version (using scanning mostly, with some numeric entry), though a smaller keyed 59 key version with full alpha was available.

I have seen these configured with serial printers attached to their MiniDIN connector; the 2435 also features a decoded/undecoded 9 pin connector for other scanning options (like a Lorax long range scanner). External scanners do make it more difficult to use with a dock though, and can affect battery life if used frequently.

The TE options are the standard text based VT/ANSI or IBM 5250/3270, and these terminals came with overlays that represented the different key maps. In fact, many WMS systems still use this as a primary interface for portable terminals: SAP, JD Edwards, MAN-MAN, Catalyst, etc. Other systems can easily be reformatted to display everything up in the upper left corner of a standard screen, and only be 21 x 31, and make supporting the application very, very easy.

Yes they are simple, but then, they simply work. Easy to support and deploy, they are still among my favorite kinds of terminals for just “gettin’ er done”. Like the Energizer Bunny of data collection, the 2435 just keeps going, and going, and going…

- David Wiegand

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David Wiegand heads up the North American Professional Services team for Ryzex. He is proud to lead a team of professionals that is backed up by a nationwide network of resources to provide everything from Consulting, to Installation and Engineering. When not coordinating all things industrial/technical, you might run into him (not literally, hopefully!) on his road bike, or sailing.