Cash register
More info
- Creator
- James Ritty
- Released
- 1879
- Type
- Cash register
Ritty built it in 1879 to stop his bartenders stealing — and founded NCR and the entire checkout industry in the process.
Saloon owner James Ritty of Dayton, Ohio, tired of staff pocketing the drink money and built "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier" in 1879, a machine that recorded every amount and rang a bell. The patent was sold on, and under John H. Patterson the company became the National Cash Register Company (NCR). The mechanical till, with its "ka-ching" and its paper receipt, was a symbol of the shop for a century.
Electronic cash registers arrived in the 1970s, and today's point-of-sale terminal is really a computer tying together a barcode scanner, a receipt printer and a card reader. The first live barcode scan — a pack of Wrigley's gum — happened in 1974 and linked the till to inventory and pricing.