1) No, when I was involved they were s/36 (on smaller sites) and s/38 (on large and/or central site). The S/38 was from the 70s. They were in the long process

1) No, when I was involved they were s/36 (on smaller sites) and s/38 (on large and/or central site). The S/38 was from the 70s. They were in the long process of replacing as I recall older System/3 (not 32) retail support machines. 2) $1000 a month is not much money for a retail store large enough to have multiple POS systems, even in 1983 dollars. And you could purchase them if you didn't want to lease. 3) I'm assuming by the 'air conditioning' comment, you're imagining some refrigerator sized minicomputer. You can look at that System/36 Wikipedia page and see pictures of 2 S/36 models that are large deskside cabinets (think of the giant PC AT tower cases of old), are air-cooled, and designed to go in the air-conditioned back room of the store, which all of the stores had.