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Overview

PTC is a DOS-based program for processing credit card payments via dial-up with a modem (1200 bps and up). In order to use it, you need a Merchant Account with a credit-card processing company. It was created by FirstData Corporation but is apparently no longer supported.

While the software itself is pretty bug-free, there are a few annoyances:

First, the fact that there doesn't seem to be a Windows version, or a version which can connect through the Internet instead of via dial-up.
Second, the fact that it refuses to run happily under Windows XP (runs ok with Windows 2000 and Windows 98SE; I use the latter).
Third, if you have trouble connecting, and this happens too many times in a row, PTC goes into a timeout mode; there are no hints onscreen or in the manual about how to fix this. It can be fixed by going into "Setup / Merchant Settings" and changing the terminal ID. Unfortunately, this can only be done by clearing the transactions you've already entered. Fortunately, you can save them in a file... but that doesn't always work, because saving to a file preserves some other things which aren't documented, and sometimes you end up just having to re-enter the whole thing. It wouldn't be so aggravating if the software hadn't cost over $1000 (more than I thought I was going to be paying; see also LeaseComm). In my opinion, the merchant processing company – Cardservice International – should provide free upgrades at that price, and more likely should have provided the software for free. Better yet, they should offer web-based processing (as in Authorize.net) as a no-cost option.