RCA Automated Supermarket Checkstand
RCA Automated Supermarket Checkstand
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- 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
- Object Name
- minicomputer peripheral
- date made
- 1970-1972
- maker
- RCA Corporation
- Physical Description
- metal (overall material)
- plastic (overall material)
- glass (overall material)
- rubber (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 4 ft x 14 ft; 1.2192 m x 4.2672 m
- ID Number
- 1974.309503.01
- catalog number
- 309503.01
- accession number
- 309503
- Credit Line
- Gift of Sperry-Univac Computer Systems
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Computers
- Cash and Credit Registers
- Computers & Business Machines
- Food
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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