Many years ago, around 1978, I did an article that I titled, “The Cash Register Revolution” about the soon-to-disappear mechanical cash registers which were to be replaced by the now ubiquitous electronic “point of sale” devices. The invention of the cash register, as I discovered, was an essential on the way to allowing modern business to exist. The inventor, a chap named Ritty (?), was being robbed blind by his employees in a one-for-you-and-one-for-me approach to putting money received into the till. So he invented his little apparatus which caught on, was bought up by the National Cash Register Company and there is now not a cash business possibly anywhere in the world that does not have its cash register into which all moneys taken in are to be placed.

Why mention it? Because I just came across an article, “Why Do Stores Give Receipts?” which comes with a nice photo of the receipt-giving machine. She (Megan McArdle) writes as I once did myself although that’s not how I remember the story exactly but you get the drift:

The history of the cash register is, by and large, the history of theft prevention. Oh, they were originally created as tallying machines for very high-volume businesses. But it was hard to convince businesses that they needed to spend $150 or $200 on a machine to hold cash, at a time when a good workman might earn a dollar or two a day.

And why do they give you are receipt?

They give you a receipt every time, annoying as it is, because they know you’ll glance at the total and notice if it’s very different from what you just paid. And maybe ask the clerk why, in the hearing of their manager.

Without the register and the receipts it issues, commerce and retail to the scale we now have would be impossible.