RCA Automated Supermarket Checkout Stand
date: label: date made
content: 1970-1972
name: label: maker
content: RCA Corporation
notes: label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Stephen A. Brown, <I>Revolution at the Checkout Counter:The Explosion of the Bar Code</I>, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
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content: Food
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content: Computers & Business Machines
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content: Cash and Credit Registers
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Sperry-Univac Computer Systems
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1974.309503.01
label: catalog number
content: 309503.01
label: accession number
content: 309503
objectType: label: Object Name
content: minicomputer peripheral
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 ft x 14 ft; 1.2192 m x 4.2672 m