"I'm sorry," said the clerk in flower shop, "we don't have potted geraniums. Could you use African violets instead?"
Replied the customer sadly, "No, it was geraniums my wife told me to water while she was gone."
Cash registerIn 1879, James Jacob Ritty (1837-1918) with help from his brother John invented the first cash register, intended to combat stealing by bartenders in the Pony House Restaurant, his Dayton, Ohio saloon. His idea came on a cruise, when he saw a device that counted the revolutions of the ship's propeller. Their first model looked like a clock, but instead of the hands indicating hours and minutes, they indicated dollars and cents. Behind the dial two adding discs accumulated the total of the amounts recorded. Known as "the incorruptible cashier," with no cash drawer, it would show anyone within sight how much had been recorded. However, the Ritty brothers failed to sell their cash registers in large quantities - largely because shop staff distrusted this "thief trap".[Image: Model of the Ritty brothers' first cash register] |
