Category: PSI

bookmark_borderKmart Canada.

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In 1965, the Singer Sewing Machine Company moved into the world of computers by purchasing the Friden Calculating Machine Company, manufacturers of calculators and other computing equipment. With the purchase of Friden, Inc., Singer Business Machines was born. The Singer System Ten, with its focus on point of sale computing equipment, was released in 1970s.

Kmart Canada took a different path than its U.S. counterpart when it came to equipment used at the checkouts. While Kmart U.S. was generally using NCR Class 5 mechanical cash registers or early electronic cash registers from NCR or Data Terminal Systems, some locations in Canada began using the Singer System Ten and Singer-Friden 908 point of sale terminals. Singer left the computing industry in 1976, selling the SBM division to International Computers Limited. ICL continue developing the Singer line, evolving the System Ten to the System 25. However, along the way, Kmart Canada moved their back-end controllers to microprocessors called the System CD 100, supplied by CyberData of Monterey, California.1

In the early to mid 1980s (still determining the date), the Singer terminals at Kmart Canada stores were undoubtedly coming to their end of useful life. While the machines could be adapted to work with just about any backend system, as these machines were designed to perform mathematical computations at the register, relying on back-end processing for inventory and account lookup information, with SBM equipment being integrated into ICL’s existing systems before the merger, Kmart Canada began looking for new registers.

It appears that Kmart Canada decided to go with the ICL 9500 series of registers.

The ICL 9500 series of registers were somewhat modular in design. Field observations indicate customer pole displays were added to the registers well after the initial installation in the mid 1980s. The keyboard arrangement is also interesting to me, in that the Enter key isn’t a double height or double wide key, but rather just a raised key to the right of the bottom row of the number pad. The printers appear to be Epson printers using 44mm receipt tape.

Like the Singer predecessors, the ICL 9500s could be adapted to work with a variety of back-end systems. Back in this era, point of sale systems tended to store and forward data to other mainframe systems; there are plenty of examples where NCR cash registers in the early 1980s were supported by IBM Series/1 installations. While manufacturers preferred they used their “complete package”, there were other options.

In the latter half of the 1980s, the CIO of Kmart in the United States was focused on solving point of sale issues in the American stores. After a couple of failed attempts through Kmart U.S.’s work with IBM and NCR, the CIO and team worked with a variety of vendors for a cohesive solution. Kmart in the states moved to point of sale and inventory software by Post Services International, or PSI, of North Carolina. While Kmart stores in states could have NCR, IBM, or Fujitsu registers at the checkouts, they all ran on the same software. It appears Kmart Canada was a little ahead of their American counterparts in the front end technology department, and worked with PSI to get the same software running on their ICL 9500 series cash registers.

There are a couple of clues on the receipt pictured above that it’s a variant of the software running on the registers in the American Kmart stores of the time, primarily the “158 158” in the receipt data footer.

Like Kmart in the states, Kmart Canada was using satellite communications to connect their stores, warehouses, and offices together. The picture at the top of this entry is grabbed from a video of a CBC News Report about the satellite outage that caused computer outages throughout the chain. Unfortunately that video is no longer available.

Kmart Canada ran with the ICL 9500 series cash registers until the sale of the chain to Zellers in 1998. It was around that same time Kmart and other chains started planning for Y2K. Kmart would eventually move away from PSI to a modified version of IBM’s Supermarket Application (which was used at their Super Kmart stores). Zellers would introduce their mix of NCR and IBM systems to the stores purchased from Kmart Canada.

  • 1 Computerworld, March 1978

bookmark_borderKmart, Part 2.

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In the early 1980s Kmart came to the realization they needed to upgrade the cash register technology in the stores across the chain. A good majority of the stores in the Kmart chain were still running with NCR Model 5 mechanical cash registers into the 1980s and they were already at their end of life. At the time, Kmart had two separate initiatives in place to develop scanning technology for its stores. One group was working with NCR on their scanning system technology (presumably NCR 255/NCR 2552), another group was developing a system using IBM Series/1 Technology.

IBM Series/1 from the IBM archives sie.

Neither group was having much success and in 1985, Kmart hired David Carlson as the new Vice President of Merchandising Systems. David Carlson had previously worked for Data Terminal Systems.

While neither the NCR nor IBM systems were meeting the Kmart’s expectations, the IBM Series/1 solution was quickly abandoned. The IBM approach had been designed using a new proprietary system called “KIN”, or Kmart Information Network, and placed the vast majority of the transactional processing on the solo Series/1 system, which was overseeing the activities of 25 IBM point of sale terminals. The terminal of choice was the IBM 3683 (originally released in the very late 1970s), and while the 3683 was a very capable point of sale terminal for the time, it’s local processing power was substantially disabled in the KIN environment and the processing was left to the lone Series/1 system at the store. If the IBM Series/1 went down, the point of sale system for the entire store went down. Mr. Carlson deemed this approach unacceptable.

IBM 3683 point of sale terminals at a Kmart in 1985.

Work continued with NCR on the other project, but eventually it was determined that it would take far too much development time (measured in “development years”) to bring a viable solution to fruition. Around this time, it was in the mid 1980s, IBM had released the affordable PC-AT computer platform. The IBM PC-AT solution was based on the new IBM PC platform with additional hardware to support point of sale terminals. It was determined that two IBM AT-based store controllers could provide a redundant solution for a Kmart location. A third party software company in North Carolina, Post Software International or PSI, developed scanning software that would work with the IBM PC AT-based store controllers and run on several different types of point of sale terminals. Kmart wanted to implement their software on IBM 4683s connected to the new PC AT-based store controllers, however, IBM would only sell Kmart 4683s if they ran with IBM’s own software solution (General Sales Application) on the controllers. David Carlson bargained with IBM and was able to get 25 IBM 4683s as a test platform to develop the PSI solution. Working with a third party systems integrator, the PSI system was successfully built, tested, and implemented. It was called PRISM, or Point of sale Retail Information Systems Management. Several types of hardware from different manufacturers could be used at the checkouts. Each hardware type of system had a unique identifier, for example a PRISM system running with IBM 3683s was called PRISM-3, IBM 4683, PRISM-4, etc.

Eventually the Kmart PRISM-x system would make it across the chain of stores. The majority of the PRISM code base worked across all the hardware variations employed by Kmart. It wouldn’t be unheard of to see one Kmart store running IBM 4683s at the checkouts, another running NCR registers, and a third running Fujitsu equipment. While I never saw a mix of point of sale terminals at the same Kmart location, there could be two Kmarts in the same city or town each running their own brand of checkout terminals. (Canadian store chain Zellers would occasionally have a mix on the same network, for example, IBM 4683 on register one, NCR on register two, all running the same software).

Though this photo was not taken at a Kmart, this is one version of NCR POS terminal Kmart used for PRISM. Photo from AP.

Here’s three receipts from different Kmarts in the 1990s all running the PSI software. Because I’m a dork, I can tell you, simply by the print on the receipts, that the first receipt came from an IBM 4683, the second came from an NCR cash register, and the third from a Fujitsu cash register. 

All three variations of these registers featured a 2×20 alphanumeric display and relatively the same keyboard layout (some function keys local to the functionality of the terminal were specific to the manufacturer). Fujitsu registers had indicator arrow lights in the margin of the display, IBM 4683s did not. I was in only one store that ran the IBM 3683 registers during this time and I only remember that it was apparent the registers behaved quite differently from any other IBM 3683s I had ever encountered. I was always fascinated with the fact that it was very apparent the same software was running across these differing platforms, as before the standardization of the IBM PC (and clones) platform and their use as store controllers in the back office, each point of sale solution would run proprietary software that had absolutely nothing in common across manufacturer’s platforms.

Fujitsu registers, mid 1990s, unknown Kmart location. Found on Flickr.

When Kmart added the “Super Kmart” format, with groceries and typical Kmart merchandise all in one very large location, the company decided to go with a different IBM-based solution. It looked to be a variation of IBM’s Supermarket Application, but before I speak more to that I need to do further research.

The IBM PC-AT with PSI software, or PRISM system, was used by Kmart well into the early 2000s.  A very solid solution, I have used David Carlson’s philosophy in my approaches to software development over the years: “don’t buy products, invest in architecture”.

Kmart 9038 in Monticello, Indiana in 2003. Fujitsu point of sale terminal. Courtesy of Flickr.

bookmark_borderJamesway.

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I didn’t step foot into a Jamesway until 1980. I was 11 years old at the time as I believe it was spring 1980. It was grand opening week of the Jameway store in Oswego, New York.

Prior to this grand opening week I had known this location, and another store on Arsenal Street in Watertown, N.Y. as “Welcome to the Wonderful World of Westons”, as the sign proclaimed as you walked into Westons Department Store.

Westons was a regional chain in Upstate New York that went bankrupt and was sold to Jamesway in late 1979.

August 1979.

I remember both the Oswego and Watertown Westons stores having Sweda cash registers with inventory recording capabilities, using the punch tape method found at other department store chains such as Ames and Zayre. After my hometown’s Ames opened I paid closer attention to the Sweda registers at Westons, they worked the same way except they used two-digit department numbers instead of the three-digit class numbers used at Ames. I don’t remember if Westons had the “double-pass” numbering of certain items, where the cashier entered a merchandise number without an amount and then followed with the department number and the amount of the item being purchased. I do, however, remember that some of the Sweda registers at Westons were “Power Penny” machines, where the cents row of amount keys could all trigger the motor, whereas others were not and the cashier had to hit the big black motor bar after hitting the department and amount keys.

When Jamesway opened up in the Westons locations in both Oswego and Watertown, they used the same registers Westons had left behind. This was easily discerned by the fact that the receipts had a blob of ink where the Westons store branding had once appeared and you could vaguely make out the word “Westons”, as if the logo stamp had been covered over with tape.

Original Jameway stores opened up in the 1970s used NCR Class 5 cash registers at the checkouts. The last mechanical cash registers made by NCR, they were also the most sophisticated. Like the Sweda registers used at the former Westons stores, the NCR Class 5 registers punched an optical tape to be read by IBM mainframes located elsewhere. Here’s a Jamesway receipt from an NCR Class 5 register.

From Flickr.

Jamesway used two digit department numbers and it wasn’t long before the stores were converted to the IBM 3680 Programmable Store System. I have been racking my brain trying to remember if Ames switched first and Jamesway followed or vice-versa. I’m inclined to think that Jamesway made the move to IBM 3683/3684 registers, but they used the lower model keyboard. There were fewer buttons on the keyboard and the “0” key was to the left of the numeric keypad instead of under the 1-2-3 row. The slash key was located above the zero key, adjacent to the 7-8-9 row.

After the move to the IBM system, Jamesway’s receipts showed a two digit number, followed by a slash mark, followed by the SKU, and then the amount. I intently watched a cashier input this information during a sale, trying to determine if they used the slash key for this input and they did not. There was a department and a separate SKU key to the right of the numeric keypad. The best I can tell, the version of the IBM software they were using was almost identical to the earlier IBM 3650 Retail Store System which ran on older IBM 3651 registers.

From the IBM 3650 Retail Store System manual.

Having never been in a non-Westons Jameway before the opening of these locations in Upstate New York, I have no way of knowing if Jamesway may have been running the older IBM systems in their legacy stores.

When I was in college in 1986 I visited the relocated Jamesway store #1 in Lakewood, New York. Jamesway #1 had originally been further out Fairmount Avenue before relocation. Situated in the former JCPenney space in the Chautauqua Mall, this new location too ran the IBM 3683 registers I had seen replace the Sweda registers in Oswego and Watertown. Like those stores, that incarnation of Jamesway #1 was running with the lower model keyboard on the 3683s. I can not find a receipt from this implementation anywhere on the Internet.

About 10 years ago I found some photos from a Jamesway store that were taken in the late 1970s. The store featured in the photo series was using NCR Class 5 mechanical registers with department number keys, just as Ames did when they took over Big N in the late 1970s. I am still trying to locate those photos.

In the late 1980s Jamesway moved to the IBM 4683/4684 registers, however, it appears they did not use the IBM 4680 Retail Application software, but instead went with a system from PSI in Raleigh, North Carolina. The use of PSI software is a theory; I determined this by the format of the receipt issued from the IBM 4683, it bears no resemblance to a receipt from IBM 4680 Retail Application, not even with heavy modification.

The receipt’s formatting is identical to receipts from other chains that used PSI’s software on Fujitsu cash registers. PSI was later purchased by Fujitsu.

With the implementation of the IBM 4683/4684 registers up front, Jamesway introduced scanning to their stores, hence the UPC code on the receipt. Having done some contract programming on IBM 4680 systems and having actually used the software during some holiday cashier duties for other chains, when I watched a cashier at Jamesway work through a transaction on an IBM 4683 at a store in Oneida, New York I knew there was no way they were using IBM’s Retail Application.

Jamesway declared bankruptcy and closed up shop in 1995. I missed the opportunity to purchase one or two of the registers from their liquidation sales. I have fond memories of the chain and always had a pleasant experience in their stores.