HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCANNING

Scanning is now 20 years old.

orking supermarket was on June 26, 1974, in this Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The project unfolded there largely because of the proximity of two of the three equipment vendors, NCR and Hobart, based nearby. Spectra-Physics, Eugene, Ore., also was key to the project.

One of the store's checkstands has been donated to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The store, shown in this 1974 photograph, is still in operation and two of the cashiers working there on scanning's first day still do so.