I've seen abacus being used. Most stores sold everything over the counter (as opposed to pick-stuff-up-and-bring-to-the-register-yourself, which was called "Sel

I've seen abacus being used. Most stores sold everything over the counter (as opposed to pick-stuff-up-and-bring-to-the-register-yourself, which was called "Self-service store") but often there has not been a cash register behind the counter. In order to buy something you had to stand in line to the counter, ask the clerk for the goods you wanted to buy and the clerk would put them aside and tell you the total price, then you had to go to the cash register line and pay the price to the cashier, then come back with the receipt to the clerk (they'd allow you to cut in the line for this) and pick up your purchase. In big stores there were multiple counters so you would get all the receipts at once by telling the counter's numbers and prices to the cashier. Cashiers usually did not have to use an abacus since the cash register worked as a calculator but the clerk had to calculate the price of your purchase and for that she often used an abacus though some stores had an electronic calculator at the counter. The whole system was very bizarre. I am not sure why they had to do this. One theory was that it was to prevent people who were handling food items at the counter from touching money but this also happened in the stores that sold non-edible goods. They did minimize the number of the cash registers I imagine, since one register could be shared between multiple counters. Could be easier to account for fewer registers?