History of POS Equipment By A Nutt At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Without POS equipment, many of the monetary transactions that take place would be more difficult to carry out. The difficulty of not having something in place to carry out a transaction was discovered in the 1870s in a Dayton, Ohio saloon. A man by the name of James Ritty had a very successful business in this saloon. As a matter of fact, he was considered an incredible dealer in cigars, pure wines, and whiskies. But just like everyone else, he had a problem. The problem was dishonest employees stealing money from the customers instead of depositing it the way that they were supposed to.

A breakthrough

When Ritty was on a trip to Europe, he was mesmerized by a counter that counted the number of revolutions made by the ship's propeller. This was done for maintenance purposes. When he returned to Dayton, he got together with his brother and worked on an idea of creating a device that would keep track of monetary transactions in order to ward off the dishonesty. In 1879, they had the first cash register in operation. They called it 'Ritty's Incorruptable Cashier.'

Soon after, the Ritty brothers opened up a factory in Dayton where they could manufacture these cash registers and sell them to other businesses to help them with their dishonesty issues. It was several years later that Jacob H. Eckert bought the Rittys' business and created the National Manufacturing Company in 1881. Later on, John Patterson bought Eckert's company and continued making improvements to the cash register. Before long, the cash register used rolls of paper to keep track of transactions and offer receipts.

Modern day systems

Modern day systems are much different than those systems developed in the 1800s and are even much different than the systems used a decade ago.

In the 1970s, the first computer-driven cash register was developed. This was done for larger business environments. Each register was connected to a mainframe computer that would track the transactions of each register. The mainframe could also control certain registers.

In the late 1980s, cash registers started operating off of PC technology, which meant a lot of the functions on your basic PC could be found on a cash register. Not like today's, though. Today, you will find cash registers with LCD screens and touch screens. The customer can see everything that is occurring on the screen to ensure the accuracy of the items that they have purchased.

Along with these cash registers came the credit card machine. Just in the last two decades have credit card processing machines made an impact. Even in the last decade, there were still businesses scanning the card information through a small handheld carbon copying device. When the card was placed on carbon paper, the card would be swiped through this device and the card copied onto the paper. The consumer would then sign and the merchant could charge to the card by contacting the credit card company.

Nowadays, it is much faster in that the card is swiped through a machine and communication with the credit card company is instant. The proper machinery is either set up as a standalone device at a cash register for the customer to swipe themselves or the device is built into the cash register for the cashier to swipe. The cashier can also swipe through a small standalone device. So now, businesses are able to take credit cards, cash, and checks. This expands their business possibilities tremendously.

So if you need some POS equipment to help your business grow, it is available. You can find the perfect cash register and the perfect credit card machine company to find a low fee machine that will help you to carry out your transactions.

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