I found this video on YouTube, it’s a “B” roll of news footage from a Target in Minnesota. Filmed in 1986, the first few minutes of the video feature the checkout area. This particular store was using IBM 3653 cash registers, assumedly in production for several years at this point. Target was using a mix of technology in the mid 1980s; newer stores used IBM 3683 cash registers at the time.
Watching the operator guidance panel when the cashier starts a new transaction. I’m assuming the user is cashier #16, then enters a “1” for “Cash Sale”, and then enters six digit SKUs and the price of each item.
Yesterday I noticed in the Waukegan, Illinois Target store the chain has removed the physical keyboards from the NCR point of sale terminals. Watching the cashier work through our transaction, Target has significantly modified the interface of their in-house point of sale software.
I’m just a guy that’s been around technology for a very long time, but forcing keyboard-type input through a touchscreen is not as efficient as actually using a physical keyboard. But alas, I do not make these decisions for Target or any other store chain, for that matter.
The northeastern supermarket chain Hannaford did this years ago with their Wincor-Nixdorf systems. As a software developer focused on efficiency and reducing friction in the user experience, watching a cashier plunk in produce PLUs on a touchscreen always made my skin crawl, as it’s much faster to type 4096 [ENTER] or whatever on a keyboard than stabbing at a 14-inch touch screen.
As I’ve been to several Target stores in the area, it’s interesting to see the chain’s hardware implementation has not been entirely consistent. Some stores have small, Elo touchscreens, while others have larger screens, and others have NCR touchscreens. When you’re writing and maintaining your own software, it’s easy to adjust to differing hardware configurations. This is a good thing, as it’s better to not be locked down to one specific, proprietary configuration.
I’ll be writing more about the history of Target’s point of sale implementations over the next few months. The photos of vintage cash registers and point of sale systems will all have keyboards.
