RCA Automated Supermarket Checkstand
RCA Automated Supermarket Checkstand
Previous
Next
Usage conditions apply
- 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
Nominate this object for photography.
Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.
If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.
