1979: BEHOLD! The LASER-OPERATED Future of SHOPPING | Nationwide | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

"Suddenly, the whole cosy world of the cash register, has been turned upside down."
Nationwide's Luke Casey looks at the impact the microprocessor is having on our shopping experience. From extraordinary developments in the field of cash register technology, to the implementation of tills equipped with laser scanners, the pace of change is startling.
Britain is famously a nation of shopkeepers, but will British industry be able to adapt to this new world of high-tech shopping? Luke attends the unveiling of the CC148 - the first British designed and manufactured electronic, digital cash register - which it is hoped will help make Britain a player in this futuristic new shopping world.
Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One, Wednesday 10 October, 1979.
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[@RickP2012]

It's funny to hear someone in the late 70s, talking about the chronic lack of British investment in engineering etc.10:28. The same interview wouldn't be out of place today, 44 years later.

[@pscassidy]

Was just thinking the same

[@stephenhill4492]

Damn! I was 18 then. How times have changed! It’s a pity British industry hasn’t though…

[@phillipecook3227]

3.51 bang on cue: Japanese hatchback drives past in the background.

[@hoofie2002]

Still focused on short term gains rather than the long haul. Nothing has changed

[@hassyg4083]

yep wonder where Britain is in the AI revolution now

[@a1white]

The internal workings of that mechanical cash register look absolutely incredible

[@phillipecook3227]

4000 parts each made on site. Incredible.

[@hassyg4083]

more complex than a swiss watch

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Used to use one of those Gross registers when I worked in a pub in the mid 70's. Cracking bit of kit. Same as the Creed teleprinters for telex, all electronic now, and telex no longer exists at all, at least not here 😕

[@rewindoflow]

Have a look at mechanical calculator videos on youtube!

[@swaneknoctic9555]

Remember watching An American Werewolf in London from 1983. The part when they're in the shop and the cashier is using an Omron 544 that has a digital display. Thought it was quite advanced looking for 1983.

[@pscassidy]

The presenter is excellent. Clear concise and entertaining. A masterclass in technology journalism.

[@Coolcarting]

Probably why he got the job.

[@hassyg4083]

it was norm for British tv back then

[@davidcarrol110]

Public school orators. Debating societies were still important in the 1950s-80s. Sound much better.

[@phillipecook3227]

That was a really great report especially with the benefit of 44 years perfect hindsight.Watching it one sentence about the Gross brothers suddenly triggered a memory and it occurred to me: I watched the original broadcast 44 years ago aged 21 😮

[@shingitai5882]

Where I live there is a little village shop and the man that owned it was still using a Victorian till which was basically a long wooden box with a draw and little sections in it for change it also had a little slot in the top were the receipts use to come out. He was still using it in the early 2000’s before he retired.😊

[@mid.west2]

What did he do when decimalization occurred?

[@shingitai5882]

@@mid.west2 Well I was born in 1969, so I never noticed the difference because I have always used the decimal system.

[@conradharcourt8263]

@@mid.west2 He started writing in only two columns on the receipts🙂 - tills like that had no keys or printed numbers, the user wrote out the receipt by hand on the till roll through a window in the top of the machine before tearing the top copy off and giving it to the customer while a carbon copy was kept on a take up roll inside the machine that was advanced when a lever was pulled to open the till drawer, on some models this left a mark on the roll that the assistant had to explain if they hadn't written a receipt above it!

[@davidkmatthews]

The chap being interviewed - and strangely uncredited - is Mick McLean from the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex university. The year before, the BBC's "Horizon" programme made a special edition called "Now the Chips are Down", which expanded upon Mick's concerns around lack of technological investment by the UK government and industry in general. Unusually for the left-leaning BBC, the programme criticised the Labour government that was in power at the time. The programme can be seen on iPlayer. (KZbin won't allow me to post the link here.)

[@Leonards-leopard]

“Left leaning” 🙄

[@conradharcourt8263]

@@Leonards-leopard i.e: doesn't automatically praise everything the Tory government does and sometimes dares to fulfil its constitutional role by actually criticising the government in power! Far better to have a state media organisation that faithfully follows the Party Line of course!

[@wisteela]

A great interesting piece of history. It's amazing seeing how much is inside those old machines, and how complex it is.

[@OlafProt]

I loved the sound of those machines when I went to do the shipping with my mum at Sainsbury’s in the 70s. There was a sort of comforting rhythm to it. I’m sure someone. An enlightened me here, but I seem to remember reading about a famous store owner, and the first thing he would do at the start of every day was come downstairs and just stand at the tills. The sound of them indicated how busy they were, therefore how much money he was making.

[@Feakre]

At 08:33 you see a Weller soldering iron. I worked in a factory in the early 80s, had the same model and I've still got it and use it weekly now!

[@Locutus]

Ok.

[@therealchayd]

I don't think the other commenter appreciat3s the longevity of weller soldering irons. We've got a working '80s one at home too lol

[@Locutus]

@@therealchayd ok

[@vink6163]

🤣 boomers who write "ok" because they don't know how the thumbs up button works

[@Locutus]

@@vink6163 Ok. You should check if one is a boomer, before calling one is a boomer, ok? A simple check would have told you that, ok? Do you feel stupid now, ok?

[@davidsumner4335]

The start of POS and bar codes in the grocery trade was the deathnell for the sales rep. Instead of me calling once a fortnight on supermarkets, cash and carrys etc to work out their deliveries of margarine, fats and cooking oils, taking in variations for seasonal or special offers and delivered from our factory or depot, the outlets used a digital hand device on each product which worked out basic sales, stock on hand and next order from the outlet's central warehouse. Goodbye job!

[@danyoutube7491]

What line of work did you move into, if you don't mind a stranger asking?

[@davidsumner4335]

@@danyoutube7491 politics for 20 odd years now retired and watching the world implode

[@smadaf]

Farriers and gladiators also mostly had to change jobs.

[@duncanward6226]

Thankyou BBC for a moment of time travel back to the Key Markets near Spalding that I used to visit as a child.

[@AtheistOrphan]

That trade show near the beginning is a feast of man-made fabrics!

[@smadaf]

Fabrics or fibers? All fabrics are man-made.

[@spidyman8853]

Those supermarket prices though. I wish we can have a day in each month were supermarket prices go back to the 1970s prices. Call it a day of price amnesty. That would be wonderful.

[@leighoriordan]

Don’t fancy the queues on that day 😂

[@OofusTwillip]

Those prices look low today, but, compared to the wages of that era, they were quite high.

[@spidyman8853]

@@leighoriordan LOL I know mate. I can imagine fight scenes taking place and with people rushing to grab stuff. It was just a thought for the current climate we all live in (with prices being so high).

[@spidyman8853]

@@OofusTwillip Yea

[@BeatUpRecordsCDs]

I’ve always appreciated mechanical machines. They have a unique charm. 😊

[@marcse7en]

And I'm sure you enjoy using your mechanical TV and Smartphone with rotary dialing! 🤣

[@OofusTwillip]

I love using my antique fountain pens and 1915 player-piano, but I'd be lost without my smartphone and computer. And I use an old NCR electro-mechanical cash register to hold my coins for the laundromat.

[@phillipecook3227]

So does a skillfully handled quill pen: trouble is nobody uses them and nobody wants to buy one

[@marcse7en]

@@phillipecook3227 Maybe because it's 2023, and not 1723? 🤣

[@marcse7en]

@@conradharcourt8263 Yes, you ARE definitely a Troll! Why do you do it? I'm reporting your comment for harassment! Merry Christmas!

[@smadaf]

Before going on TV to talk about cash-registers, put on your Dallas Cowboys pin.

[@JasonC1782]

Heinz soup 1979: 17½p Heinz soup 2023: £1.70

[@Firkinnel]

Used an online inflation calculator. The Heinz soup would be 82p these days !

[@analogueman123456787]

Having been born in 1967, this is well within my lifetime, and I remember those times well. I kind of miss them too. I'm obviously not the only one here chuckling at the prices of groceries back then. 😄

[@petergivenbless900]

Solution to inflation: move the decimal point one digit to the left every 40 years!

[@Slate-writer]

£1.70 ...???? You shop at Harrods then...? Don't they have Farm Foods where you come from? 😄

[@barrysmith4588]

You need to use the freddo frog calculus....

[@NCHLTII]

I love how the basis of this tech is still used today.

[@felixalbion]

I am old enough to remember mechanical tills where everything price had to be keyed in. The experienced staff could key in prices faster than they scan them these days.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

When I worked behind the bar in a pub in the mid 70's, we added up the drinks prices in our heads, then just put the total into one of those Gross cash registers. I'd love to see bar staff try doing that now 🤣

[@xdasdaasdasd4787]

Off topic but i wish we could relaunch tomorrows world in 2023...

[@SarahC2]

8:28 - The first Pick and place machine! My old Gran!

[@BdManus]

Great video, very informative. I wish those cheap food prices would come back.

[@Locutus]

Totally agree. If prices were what they were 10 years ago, but with today's income, then I would think that was a fair price.

[@danyoutube7491]

I didn't realise that barcodes came in just a few years before I was born ('81). I hadn't really thought about it before now but it makes sense that they would have come into use at roughly the same time as home computers, and for the same principle reason - microprocessor prices coming down to an acceptable level. And of course TV programmes and movies from the 70s showed that they weren't in use, I should have remembered that...

[@OofusTwillip]

Universal Product Codes launched in the USA in the early 1970s. The first UPC scanned in a store was on a multi-pack of Wrigley's gum, on June 26, 1974.

[@smadaf]

There are UPCs on some of the groceries in the American movie _Three Women_ (1977).

[@tradingcardboss]

God they were exciting times and still are in the digital world 🎉🎉

[@phillipecook3227]

I was 21 at the time of this broadcast and realise now I was guilty of being asleep at the wheel. I like many others didn't grasp the significance of the integrated microchip and the IT tsunami lurking behind it which would change the world.

[@BowlOfRed]

What is the lapel pin on the guy at the end? It looks like a Dallas Cowboys logo. Is it something else that just looks like an American football helmet? I can't imagine what would cause that connection.

[@cdl0]

One thing that I wish was reinstated is the sliding barrier at the checkout so that the cashier could begin dealing with the next customer without waiting for the previous one to finish packing up their shopping. All the Nordic countries use this system; why not in the UK?

[@gregwhitaker438]

Yes, particularly in Aldi and Lidl where you have to use the belt.

[@RetroJack]

Because it makes sense.

[@JonnyBlueChair]

Aldi use that here

[@TheRealSmithFamily]

Amazing! My mobile phone has 19 billion transistors in its chip.

[@fidelcatsro6948]

i still prefer jack n jill potato chips

[@-_James_-]

19 billion transistors, and it’s 35 million times faster than a 6800. (Assuming you’re talking about the A17 Pro in the iPhone 15 Pro.)

[@bltzcstrnx]

​@@-_James_-iPhone is an overkill comparison. My cheap Chinese phone is already more powerful than the 6800 you mentioned.

[@gan9e]

If you Sellotape together, the remote control devices of a Sony 511-UK and a Hitachi SK-101 and then pop the creation into a haversack and leave it on the top deck of a bus in town, then what you have done is actually read my comment to its anticlimactic end needlessly.

[@-_James_-]

@@bltzcstrnx Pretty much any processor from the last 45 years is faster than a 6800. But you miss the point I was making. Which is how much faster processors have become in such a short time, and how much faster they are becoming every year. The A17 Pro processor is (depending on which benchmark you use) up to 1000 times faster than the ARM 11 in the original iPhone.

[@scotiajinker8392]

I started work @ 17 years old in 82 in a cash register sales & workshop. Gross sold up in the early 80’s then formed an electric cash register company called HSG, it wasn’t a good machine & they didn’t last long.

[@diond1333]

09:32 I'm sure I'm always served by that cashier in Aldi.

[@eduardo0796]

Quite fascinating to look back to this. Seems like the 1970s really cemented the decline of the British influence in different economical sectors.

[@haweater1555]

Especially their auto industry went into the toilet (loo over there).

[@tomp7847]

Understanding where computers came from originally helps a tonne at understanding them today

[@robinvanags912]

"... you can cuddle up to your cash register. It's a little lumpy, but it rings" ('Hello Dolly').

[@AtheistOrphan]

‘Unexpected item in the bagging area!’

[@smadaf]

Please, remove all bagged items. Please, remove all bagged items. Please, remove all bagged items. HURRY UP AND TAKE YOUR STUFF!

[@jaywalker3087]

Where it all started to go wrong...😮😮😮

[@SirHackaL0t.]

Their building is now used by Brighton Police.

[@thatjpwing]

The scanning registers are IBM 3663s.

[@BungleBare]

At around 10:20, was that Mary Whitehouse leaving the store?

[@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter]

00:45 Alex Ball's introduction

[@jossym]

When I was a young kid, walking around Fine Fare with my mum for the weekly shopping I used to love peeling the price tags off of the food we were buying and swapping them with tags from cheaper products. No CCTV to catch me, I thought I was a genius as they never, ever queried it at the till. My mum used to pretend to be horrified at what I'd done but even as a child I knew the reason I didn't get told off was because it was saving her ££'s every week, lol. I was unstoppable, until technology rendered my scam redundant.

[@GMT439]

Chubb Cash = CC = 33 with the Silly Cone Tech

[@stepheng8779]

Was that Gross or net profit 🤔🤦

[@ThomasSchick]

…the irony here is that a Brit first proposed the idea of an integrated circuit (Geoffrey Dummer | Royal Radar Est.) and failed …which the Americans (TI) capitalized on the original idea later on. 😂😂😂

[@AiOinc1]

If Gross was such a well run factory selling a profitable product why did they try to change their well selling product line and switch their factory around? Their factory was a decade, maybe 2 behind other facilities, even in mainland Europe. The first truly great British achievement will be a television programme that does not glorify their failing industry and lazy workforce.

[@davidpanton3192]

Yes, but the old machines were fun, weren't they? Dit dit diddle-a; dit dit dit diddle-a; dit dit diddle-a... Then when they got to the total: diddle-a; diddle-a di-diddle-a. You had to be there.

[@MrSpliffy3]

Hold up. I watched this last week 😅

[@tomservo5007]

10:11 , why aren't cashiers in the US allowed to sit?

[@RetroJack]

Their arses are already fat enough!

[@DAN420.]

I can't see this taking off.

[@iamfinky]

Fascinating to take a look back and interesting to note that they didn't mention how barcodes work/are standardised. I'd be curious to know what the original format of this film is and what processing the BBC did to clean it up and get it on KZbin. @BBCArchive, do you have any info on this?

[@smadaf]

Not only that: he also said the barcode was stamped on the package by the store.

[@iamfinky]

@@smadaf It probably was. I don't think there were EAN or UPC codes yet.

[@smadaf]

@@iamfinky, about 10:05 we see a shot of UPCs (not stamped by the store) and hear the words "On each product is a unique number, stamped by the store"; from 9:32 we see UPCs being scanned by lasers at cash-registers, in Lincolnshire, England. The first purchase of a product that included scanning of its UPC occurred on 26 June 1974, in Troy, Ohio; the movie _Three Women_ (1977) also shows groceries bearing UPCs.

[@rayoflight62]

Solar panels and wind turbines are exceptional energy generators, but pretty useless for most applications, because their energy output is not continuous. Therefore, the development of new batteries which are both cheap and energy-dense is the single most important development of our times. What about some serious investment in battery research?

[@Leonards-leopard]

That would be too sensible

[@-_James_-]

The UK tried that last year. The company went bankrupt shortly after it was started.

[@pqrstzxerty1296]

Now you can just walk in take the items off the shelf and walk out, no need to goto the till. Amazon AI, Tesco AI and Aldi AI shops.

[@haweater1555]

The mass conversion from pound-shilling-pence money to decimals less than 10 years before meant stores didn't want to upgrade so soon again. British cash register makers had a captive market in the past with the unique currency system; with decimals many foreign competitors. The American laser-scanned grocery system likely couldn't cope with UK ¼p and ½p coins and prices so cheap candy prices vanished.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

We never had ¼p in the decimal system. You're thinking of farthings in the £sd system.

[@haweater1555]

@@TestGearJunkie.Sorry, I'm in Canada. I remembered incorrectly . It turns out that a new "qua'pen'y" was considered for decimalization, but never produced. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfpenny_(British_decimal_coin)

[@conradharcourt8263]

@@haweater1555 I would suggest that it is a myth that decimalisation caused inflation, in fact the 70s oil crisis was the primary cause. As far as 'candy' goes, AFAIR Penny Chews were sold for a new halfpenny and 6d Mars bars for 3p, only a slight increase in each, for the first year or so until 1973 when the oil price shot up, so by 1979 a Mars bar was around 11p, equivalent to 2/2d., so not clearly attributable to a false comparison between 6d and 6p!

[@positivelynegative9149]

Electronics mystify me. 🤯

[@OrangutanSquash]

Look up a channel called ‘Ben eater’ you’ll have to go way back in the archive but he describes how silicon is doped to make diodes and then transistors, how they are used to make logic gates and other circuits and from there literally he builds a computer. Everything is explained from first principles. Truly fascinating.

[@lewis7515]

Im glad technology has moved on to the point that every computer isn't so otherworldly that they feel compelled to give every one of them some kind of awestruck name, that has a very slight air of, "Our New Overlord", about it.

[@therealchayd]

Thar cpu costing £5, I was thinking to myself "oh that's cheap", forgetting to account for inflation. In todays money that's around £30.

[@Synthematix]

Damn, a weeks shopping for 5 quid

[@pressureworks]

When will this be available, please !!??!!

[@fidelcatsro6948]

january 2024...you need to preorder now!

[@rayoflight62]

It is never too late to start a manufacturing boom. Setup the Universities to train the engineers, make the industrial investments, prepare the market strategies, ohilà is done. In 2023, considered the possibilities, I would invest in 3 nm advanced chip manufacturing, battery energy storage, and heuristic computing - it is possible in 30 years from now we will have domestic helpers in the form of a robot; but we need to start designing these new devices now...

[@RetroJack]

You should be in government! 😋

[@bobbleboydk]

No Way

[@Locutus]

Anyone know the etymology of microchip? Did they use the word "chip", because it looked like a chip made from a potato?

[@acejavacoder78]

In general, chip means small piece. So potato chip is just a small piece of potato and silicon chip is just a small piece of silicon. Microchip is a very small chip ...

[@Locutus]

@@acejavacoder78 I suppose that is a plausible explanation. Not sure if it is the explanation, but it's certainly plausible.

[@hswami74]

Designed and built in Britain not China. I wonder what happened?

[@fidelcatsro6948]

China stole the technology😂😂

[@00_rei90]

​​​@@fidelcatsro6948Hardly. Industrialization in Britain was already on the decline in the 70s and Thatcher-led government exacerbated the already maligned issue where plenty of heavy industries, deemed as strategic assets to other countries, were sold to the highest bidders who were then ran it to the ground. Also the rise of Japan and then South Korea as the source of high-quality, low price consumer electronics meant that local consumer electronics companies couldn't compete with them on the open market A sensible country would've introduced taxes to either protect local players and/or to encourage these foreign companies to set up shop in the UK and transfer their knowledge to local companies but between Pound Sterling being such a ridiculously strong currency and consumer electronics hardly have any meaningful, groundbreaking technology behind them (just a bunch of already existing technology packaged in a smart, convenient product) meant that even with taxes it would still be cheaper to produce them in Japan then import them into Britain than to produce the same thing in Britain. China only becoming a major player in high tech industry in the last 20 years or so

[@9inchpp]

​@@00_rei90A shame really. Britain has plenty of world's top universities compared to Japan and yet the brits couldn't compete with them in term of ingenuity I seems to recall a skit about how Britain used to make steels, where industrial jobs are being replaced with nonsense "services" jobs

[@AtheistOrphan]

Thatcher!

[@hswami74]

@00_rei90 You need to understand that for the last 40 years it has always been a plan to emerge Eastern economies (especially design and manufacture) and decline them in the West.

[@yanboubou]

17 and a half pence... Kill me now😅

[@der.Schtefan]

How can you name your company Chubb 😂

[@SteveEfromStevesSidecarPlace]

It wasnt that they reacted too late. If you are reacting it's already too late. You need to be in front.

[@Ginger_Dalek]

And today we have the self-service till 😠

[@theram4320]

"Now that we've got the power, what are we going to do with it?" Fast forward to 2023 and we are regressing as a species. The genie is out of the bottle, and innovation is fantastic, but it can also diminish the human experience, and human outputs.

[@marcse7en]

Strange pronunciation of "Gross?" ... The narrator pronounces it like "Cross" but starting with "G"

[@Tim091]

As it was a family surname I imagine that is how they pronounced it. Unlikely they would call themselves Gross (as in disgusting!).

[@marcse7en]

@@Tim091 Well, if they have a "gross" name, that's their misfortune! 🤣

[@ovalwingnut]

The U,K,has has accomplished incredible things over the decades - things you and I use or depend on every day. Don't even get me started on WWII. They RoCk! Just saying. Cheers from So,CA,USA "third house on the right"

[@ThatAnnoyingGuyFrom]

The funniest part was the stereotypical English shopping list! 😅

[@Liberated_from_Religion]

Look around you.

[@AtheistOrphan]

👍

[@matthewbland8765]

Thanks ants. Thants.

[@Liberated_from_Religion]

😂@@matthewbland8765

[@Liberated_from_Religion]

Thanks, Hanks. Thanks. @@matthewbland8765

[@OofusTwillip]

The trouble with electronic cash registers is that they're light enough for a thief to pick them up and carry them off. The old mechanical cash registers weigh around 100 lbs., so they're like safes.

[@georgeprout42]

Small business owner here. You know we can screw the cash drawer into the counter, or even put the cash drawer below the counter? They come with a cable to connect the till and drawer. Yeah, you're probably right; most probably unbox and just plonk it in position without thought. I always do both, but obviously the insert is removable if a thief was to get the drawer open. There's a manual tab on the bottom, but I've made it as hard as possible for anyone to reach, whilst not making it impossible if I need to.

[@hassyg4083]

its ok dont use cash

[@TestGearJunkie.]

@@georgeprout42 When I worked in retail we always took the cash drawer out of the till at night and locked it in the safe. It always amazes me that shops now seem to leave a till full of cash out, just waiting for a tea leaf to break in.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

@@hassyg4083 Wouldn't use anything else, especially since debit/credit cards became contactless. All I use my card for is to draw out cash, the rest of the time it stays home.

[@OofusTwillip]

Britain is so civilised, letting cashiers sit to work, the same as office clerks. North America has always had the insane belief that cashiers must stand, otherwise they're lazy. This takes a terrible physical toll on workers' bodies.

[@grahamnichols1416]

Ironically, the Second World War was the making of countires like Japan and Germany. Their industry destroyed, they started with new more modern equipment. Meanwhile Britain plodded on with not only existing outdated equipment but an outdated attitude to change. It was an own goal. :( A till with 4,000 parts was just asking for trouble.

[@user-vd8bu3sj2g]

What happened to your soldering kit from engineer school? It got left behind in a bad romance that ended with jail for you, but other people get into all your stuff all the time everywhere then you have to wonder when you see the videos about those forever bracelets where they solder the last link together when it's on your wrist, did anybody find your old soldering stuff and get to be a high tech social media guru for putting you through all this

[@wildone106]

Far too many whiote people in the past, we need to re-colorize these old films to comply with DEI rules.