I have the main unit.
Electronic Point of Sale computer + TVS 9″ Super VGA Monochrome Monitor
+ Epson M129B Termal Printer (Nokia DOS Software)
The Electronic Point of Sale Computer — Commerce Meets Computing
The Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) terminal represents one of computing’s most commercially significant but least celebrated applications — the technology that transformed retail and hospitality industries worldwide by replacing mechanical cash registers with computerised systems capable of inventory management, sales analysis, loyalty programmes, and integrated payment processing. EPOS systems were among the earliest computers to reach mass deployment in non-office environments, making them important artefacts of computing history even if they rarely appear in traditional computer collections.
The Retail Computing Revolution
The transition from mechanical cash registers to electronic point of sale systems began in the 1970s and accelerated through the 1980s. Early EPOS terminals used barcode scanning (standardised by the introduction of the Universal Product Code in 1974), receipt printers, customer displays, and connections to central inventory databases to provide retailers with real-time sales data that had previously required manual stocktaking. The productivity gains were enormous — a supermarket that once needed weekly manual inventory counts could track stock levels in real time, reducing waste and improving ordering accuracy.
Historical Significance
EPOS terminals like this example represent the invisible computing infrastructure of everyday commercial life — systems that most people interact with multiple times daily without recognising them as computers at all. They were among the first computers to achieve truly mass deployment, reaching millions of retail locations worldwide long before personal computers became common. Their inclusion in a retro computer collection provides important context for understanding how computing shaped society beyond the home and office.