Mechanical registers
I remember, as a wee lad, being in a Piggly Wiggly during a power failure and seeing the boxboys cranking away on the registers (maybe I should rephrase that) synced up with the checkers. The checkers would enter the numbers and the boxboys would whirl the crank. They were fast, like it happened all the time.
There was enough light coming through the plate glass windows that everyone could shop almost normally. Of course, the store was not as large as supermarkets today.
I remember, as a wee lad, being in a Piggly Wiggly during a power failure and seeing the boxboys cranking away on the registers (maybe I should rephrase that) synced up with the checkers. The checkers would enter the numbers and the boxboys would whirl the crank. They were fast, like it happened all the time.
There was enough light coming through the plate glass windows that everyone could shop almost normally. Of course, the store was not as large as supermarkets today.