Note: this all started about four years ago, long before I used Claude. Claude helps me write it up.

I’m a semi-regular at a local kebab shop. Back at their old location, the owner found out I do IT. You can probably guess what happened next.

The first call was about Thuisbezorgd. Their orders came in through T-Connect, running on an old-as-hell laptop in a corner of the kitchen, next to an HP Smart Tank inkjet covered in grease. And that printer was being a pain again.

The HP Smart Tank that was doing a receipt printer's job in a kebab kitchen

It printed every single order on a full sheet of A4. And when it was having a bad day, it printed them like this:

A Thuisbezorgd order on A4, with half of every line missing

That one was my final straw. I was just done with it.

So I fixed it one last time, and then replaced it. Marktplaats came through again: a second-hand USB receipt printer, with a box of rolls thrown in. It came from a local vocational school (MBO), where they’d used it to teach students how registers work. Now it’s doing the real thing.

That was close to four years ago. I’m still the person who gets called.

The good news: this owner is the opposite of the sandwich shop guy. He listens, and he’d rather do it right the first time, even if it costs a bit more. Which is how a kebab shop ended up with everything in this series.

And then they moved to a new location, and he asked if I could help. That’s where part 1 starts.