Oddity of the Week: Consumer Computing: 1942
Created | Updated Mar 23, 2014
Note to Subscribers: Your old analogue computer is so last year…
Consumer Computing: 1942
How old is your computer? Do you feel anxious if it's not this years' model? If you didn't have it, could you do your taxes?
This gentleman seems happy at his checkout counter. He's using an abacus to figure out his customers' grocery bills. The year is 1942, and the city is New York. (We're not sure why the Office of War Information wanted this photo. Seems sort of odd.)
What a difference a few years can make. These days, the checkout is all electronic, even in a mom-and-pop store. Of course, the kids with the scanner are very likely to tell you they can't check you out in a power failure. This man would have lit a candle, and kept calculating.
Ah, progress…
