UPC codes & grocery scanning

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marshd1000
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by marshd1000 »

It has been awhile since I had read this thread. In doing so, I realized that I need to acknowledge Timbabcock's post about the first supermarket in Washington State to have scanners. It had mentioned Boulveard Park Thriftway. He is most likely correct. This store was originally known , as Mansfield's Thriftway. Later this store was known as Holiday Foods/Thriftway then Holiday Foods. Later it became Uddenberg's Thriftway, which was what I mentioned in my earlier post. Uddenberg later sold it off and it is now known again as Boulevard Park Thriftway. Uddenberg eventally sold most of it's stores to QFC.

Also Timbabcock mentioned about the Kent (Midway), WA Fred Meyer and it's registers. I don't remember the registers too much. But when Fred Meyer took this store over from Leslie's (Valu-Mart), they operated their food department as a "Fred Meyer Consumer Warehouse Foods". These were no frills warehouse stores in which you used a grease pencil to mark prices on the product.
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enginecapt
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The dawn of price scanners

Post by enginecapt »

http://www.wired.com/science/discoverie ... ntech_0626

And it just seems like yesterday that the checkers would stand before the punch button mechanical cash registers that spit out the narrow, light tan colored paper tape with the blue printing on it, then figure out in their head how much change you had coming.

It seems like yesterday because I used to be one of those people, albeit at a gas station instead of a grocery store.
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Dean
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Re: The dawn of price scanners

Post by Dean »

See the following thread on UPC codes and scanning:

http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtop ... f=2&t=1065

Topics have been merged by moderator.
Dean
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by Dean »

Found the following news report on YOU TUBE about scanning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acPASrLdRFA

(it is after the first report)

Funny thing...how they give the RALPHS phone number...without mentioning the area code. Those were the days when EVERYTHING in LA as 213 !!
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by Super S »

Is there anyplace online that has pictures of some of the 1980s-era registers (particularly NCR and IBM) mentioned in this thread? I did quite a bit of searching with not much luck.
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by explorersea »

I had the pleasure to work with all four generations of IBM Supermarket scanning technology, I miss those days very much. Seattle Division Safeway installed scanning in the Bear Creek and Redmond stores using the Sperry Univac solution. Sperry Univac decided to pull out of the Retail UPC scanner technology so Seattle converted to the IBM 3660 series beginning with the Fixed solution moving to the Programmable solution later. Some of you old timers will remember the 3660 generation, dependable, sturdy, lots of metal, and very heavy! IBM 3680 was the next generation and provided many years of reliable service, smaller, lighter, and less expensive. Next came the 4680 platform, light years ahead of 36xx models, running on PC's instead of huge store controllers, much smaller, agile, lots of plastic, but was amiable to future technology requirements. And finally the 4690 series which survives today, more retail hardened than 4680, and expansive options and flexibility.
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Brian Lutz
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by Brian Lutz »

explorersea wrote:I had the pleasure to work with all four generations of IBM Supermarket scanning technology, I miss those days very much. Seattle Division Safeway installed scanning in the Bear Creek and Redmond stores using the Sperry Univac solution. Sperry Univac decided to pull out of the Retail UPC scanner technology so Seattle converted to the IBM 3660 series beginning with the Fixed solution moving to the Programmable solution later. Some of you old timers will remember the 3660 generation, dependable, sturdy, lots of metal, and very heavy! IBM 3680 was the next generation and provided many years of reliable service, smaller, lighter, and less expensive. Next came the 4680 platform, light years ahead of 36xx models, running on PC's instead of huge store controllers, much smaller, agile, lots of plastic, but was amiable to future technology requirements. And finally the 4690 series which survives today, more retail hardened than 4680, and expansive options and flexibility.
Roughly when did these installations occur? If I recall correctly, the Bear Creek store would have opened sometime in the mid Seventies (which is when that shopping center was built.) Also, when you talk about the Redmond (as opposed to Bear Creek) store, that would be the one in the Overlake neighborhood next to the 520/148th interchange, correct?

Sorry to diverge from the topic at hand a bit, but since I've been working on some local retail history here in Redmond, I'd be interested to find out about this.
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explorersea
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by explorersea »

yes, both Bear Creek and the Overlake store were installed in the mid 70's, I can find out the date if that is helpful. So these two stores had more scanning generation than any other Seattle Division stores (Sperry Univac, IBM 3660, 3680, 4680, 4690).
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by catnapped »

Super S wrote:Is there anyplace online that has pictures of some of the 1980s-era registers (particularly NCR and IBM) mentioned in this thread? I did quite a bit of searching with not much luck.
Kind of long to be rehashing a dead thread, but I saved some photos from NCR years ago when they had a pictoral history site up. Couple of older style electronic cash registers:

Image

Image

Image
Super S
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by Super S »

THANK YOU for those pictures. The first one looks very similar to the registers many Fred Meyer stores used, without scanners, in nonfood departments during the 80s (although I do know Longview retained mechanical registers in non-food departments until the late 80s). Some Smiths stores used those also. The last one was used by Fred Meyer (in their food departments), Smiths, Buttrey, and was widely used by Albertsons, I remember "talking" versions of it. The keyboard was detachable and sometimes was mounted over the scanner like most registers are today. There was also another version of the second one which used orange numbers instead of red and was found mostly in non-food retail, I think Sears and JCPenney both used the orange number version. The keyboards looked very similar between the two.
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by catnapped »

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ei2Ik5quiI0/S ... opping.jpg

That one's from a Publix article on Pleasant Family Shopping. I don't remember the pole displays on them when stores around here were using those.
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by Super S »

Another great picture. Those pole displays I remember seeing at the Smith's at Overland Park in Boise. They actually had the red display where those registers (NCR 255?) used green displays. It seems that the former Albertsons at Fairview and Five Mile also had these, with scanners, that had a green display which sat right on top of the register instead of the pole style.

Thanks again for the picture.
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by krogerclerk »

Here's an article showing the Magellan Model A scanner, very bulky, with a black and white photo of the NCR register from June 26, 1974 at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, OH.

http://www.scanning.datalogic.com/sitef ... rsary.aspx
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by catnapped »

Aha! Finally found those pages I referenced. Apparently they're all on NCR's Japan website.

Another photo:

NCR 280: Image

More to peruse...translated with Babelfish so it may be broken English but probably good enough to understand

1970-1978: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_your ... =Translate

If you go forward or back from that page, Babelfish should auto-translate the resulting page(s)...have fun!
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Re: UPC codes & grocery scanning

Post by catnapped »

Another couple of NCR 280 photos:

Image

Image

Image
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