Computers & Business Machines

Apple II Personal Computer

Imagine the loss, 100 years from now, if museums hadn't begun preserving the artifacts of the computer age. The last few decades offer proof positive of why museums must collect continuously—to document technological and social transformations already underway.

The museum's collections contain mainframes, minicomputers, microcomputers, and handheld devices. Computers range from the pioneering ENIAC to microcomputers like the Altair and the Apple I. A Cray2 supercomputer is part of the collections, along with one of the towers of IBM's Deep Blue, the computer that defeated reigning champion Garry Kasparov in a chess match in 1997. Computer components and peripherals, games, software, manuals, and other documents are part of the collections. Some of the instruments of business include adding machines, calculators, typewriters, dictating machines, fax machines, cash registers, and photocopiers

Topic: Cash and Credit Registers

Brandt Automatic Cashier

By the late 19th century, many American workers were paid in cash. Putting together packets with precisely the right bills and coins was a tedious task. In the 1890s, Edward J.
Description
By the late 19th century, many American workers were paid in cash. Putting together packets with precisely the right bills and coins was a tedious task. In the 1890s, Edward J. Brandt, a cashier at the Bank of Watertown in Watertown, Wisconsin, invented a machine that could dispense change automatically.
The machine dispenses change in amounts between 1 cent and 99 cents. It has eight channels across the front, three for pennies, one for nickels, two for dimes, one for quarters and one for 50-cent pieces. Above and behind the channels is an array of 99 plastic keys, numbered from 1 to 99. Pressing another key, marked "5," releases five pennies. On the right are keys marked 10, 25, 25 and 100 that give change for these amounts. The entire coin holder can be removed from the mechanism for storage of coins. Pushing down a key moves a bar that pushes coins from a channel into a compartment with a trap door at its base. Pushing the trap door back releases change into the hand.
A mark on the front and the back of the machine reads reads: BRANDT AUTOMATIC CASHIER. A mark on a brass plate on the back of the machine reads: PATENTED (/) JULY 11, 1899. . . (/) DEC. 12, 1916 (/) 48184 93421 10014 PATENTS PENDING (/) T.M.Reg.U.S.Pat.Off. (/) Brandt Manufacturing Company (/) WATERTOWN, WISCONSIN. The serial number, marked on the right side at the front, is 22446.
Brandt’s machine received medals at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris and the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. This example dates from the 1920s.
References:
James H. McCarthy, The American Digest of Business Machines, Chicago, 1924, p. 196–197.
Charles J. Wallman, Edward J. Brandt, Inventor, Watertown, WI: Brandt, Inc., 1984.
Accession file.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1925
maker
Brandt Manufacturing Company
ID Number
2001.0011.01
accession number
2001.0011
catalog number
2001.0011.01

Check-A-Tron Electronic Cash Register

This yellow-tinted electronic cash register sits atop an off-white cash drawer. It has black keyboard keys, a printer for receipts, and a red digital display. The key that opens the cash drawer is missing.A mark on the left front reads: CHECK-A-TRON.
Description
This yellow-tinted electronic cash register sits atop an off-white cash drawer. It has black keyboard keys, a printer for receipts, and a red digital display. The key that opens the cash drawer is missing.
A mark on the left front reads: CHECK-A-TRON. The machine has serial number 4500032. Stanley Hayman Business Machines stickers are on the front and the back.
Check-A-Tron began selling an American-built electronic cash register in 1975. In 1977 it introduced the MICROS electronic cash register/point-of-sale terminal. The firm also distributed Sanyo cash registers made in Japan. According to a mark on this machine, it was assembled in the United States. By 1983 Check-A-Tron Corporation was out of the cash register business entirely.
Reference:
Creative Strategies Internaional, Retail Automation to 1983, San Jose: Creative Strategies International, 1980, esp. p. 116.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1975
maker
Check-A-Tron Corporation
ID Number
2002.0281.03
accession number
2002.0281
catalog number
2002.0281.03

RCA Automated Supermarket Checkout Stand

By the late 1960s, minicomputers were sufficiently cheap to envision using them to automate much of the pricing and sale of groceries. RCA Corporation, working in conjunction with Kroger Company, developed a supermarket checkstand that linked to an RCA 6100 minicomputer.
Description
By the late 1960s, minicomputers were sufficiently cheap to envision using them to automate much of the pricing and sale of groceries. RCA Corporation, working in conjunction with Kroger Company, developed a supermarket checkstand that linked to an RCA 6100 minicomputer. This is an example of the checkstand. It first operated at a Kroger’s store in Kenwood, Ohio, near Cincinnati, in July, 1972. The tests were quite successful, running for many weeks. However, the device relied on a different identification code than the Universal Product Code adopted the following year. RCA decided not to try to sell point-of-sale terminals.
Reference:
Stephen A. Brown, Revolution at the Checkout Counter:The Explosion of the Bar Code, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970-1972
maker
RCA Corporation
ID Number
1974.309503.01
catalog number
309503.01
accession number
309503

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