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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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120489
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12048900.011
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1990-09-19
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BUSINESS, Page 69Business NotesRETAILINGNo Breaks for This Clerk
Ever notice how retail clerks always seem to be on their coffee
break when you have a request? Not the proprietor of a compact-disc
outlet that opened last week in Minneapolis. The clerk behind the
counter boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of the 5,400-item
inventory, and never leaves the store. The attendant can't, because
it is a robot -- the first to run its own shop.
Invented by Robert Cahlander and David Carroll of the Robot
Aided Manufacturing Center in Red Wing, Minn., the robot has a
400-lb. arm that dispenses discs, makes change and processes
credit-card purchases. Its computer brain also tracks inventory and
cues up tunes for customers who punch their requests on a keyboard.
The designers may franchise an army of the devices. Behind every
great robot, of course, there is a human -- in this case a worker
who drops by once a week to replenish the stock and collect the
receipts. And maybe, says Carroll, "clean the glass with a little
Windex." Even a robot, after all, has pride.