Category: Data Terminal Systems

Continuing from last week’s post, here’s some more documentation from the RSPA’s (Retail Solutions Providers Association) 75th anniversary celebration during their RetailNOW convention earlier this summer.

Here’s the documentation featuring the Data Terminal Systems Series 200 cash registers. I remember seeing these registers in the wild; a local gas station used it as their primary machine for their service station. I was fascinated by the dot-matrix printer and thought of it as more technically advanced that the EP-101 impact printers in the Series 300 and 400 machines. The 200 machines were quite capable as standalone registers. I remember a bargain grocery store chain using these machines in their six checkout lane setup.

I was interested to see the Series 200 registers being compatible with DTS’s external slip printer.

You can download the file (right-click and save) here.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the Data Terminal Systems (DTS) cash registers from back in the day. At one point I had two DTS Model 150s in my collection, but after they gave up the ghost I decided to donate them to another retro computing enthusiast.

The Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) recently celebrated their 75th anniversary at their RetailNOW convention. I’ll be posting some of the vintage documentation highlighted at their event. After spotting (and sharing) the photographed DTS Model 319 in the previous post, I did some research and was able to reach out to some folks in the industry.

Here we have a DTS Model 440 that was featured at the RSPA event, as photographed by Dave McCarthy of DUMAC Business Systems in Syracuse, New York. This particular register was either refurbished or built to original specs after National Semiconductor purchased Data Terminal Systems and started incorporating the DTS designs into their Datachecker line.

The keyboard layout is mostly familiar to me; the only differences I can spot is “LOG SBTL” in what I knew as the “DEPT NR” location and the “@/SBTL” button replaced by a simple “@” key. This was just a difference in configuration for whatever retail chain used this particular register. I know on the Model 440 I was able to play around with back in my teens, pressing ACCT NR would log the current subtotal on the receipt and journal tapes.

As a native of Upstate New York, a couple of grocery store chains, including P&C Foods and some Great American locations, used these registers as their first ECRs. Fays Drugs also used a variant.

I’ve been running across a few new photos and some documentation around Data Terminal Systems cash registers lately. I’ll be reaching out to a source to make sure they’re good with me reposting the information here. In the meanwhile, here’s a photo of a Data Terminal Systems Model 319 electronic cash register. I found the photo on Linked In.

I remember this exact configuration of DTS equipment at a local grocery store back in the day. I also remember a variation in use at the Carls Drugs drugstore chain in Upstate New York. Those registers were in use right up until the chain was sold to Fay’s Drugs (and Fay’s put in their DTS Series 400 registers). AMT TEND in the upper left hand corner is a vivid memory, also I believe the display would fill with leading zeroes when the sub total is displayed (1.09 would be represented as 0001.09).

Going through old photos I found this picture of a Data Terminal Systems Series 400 cash register in Canada. I believe there’s an old mall or shopping center that’s preserved in its legacy state, complete with three checkouts and these registers.

Anyone remember the location?

The cashier above is using a cash register made by Data Terminal Systems of Maynard, Massachusetts. The best I can tell, it’s either a Series 300 or Series 400 cash register. I am looking for any information I can get my hands on for these two series of registers by DTS. If you have any receipts, documentation, photos, anything, it would be most welcome.

There is very little information on the Internet about Data Terminal Systems, even though they were one of the first electronic cash register companies in the world and their technology was everywhere, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.

I’d like to get as much information about Data Terminal Systems online as possible, before it’s all lost to forgotten history.