Self-service checkouts were non-existent, it was all cashiers then.
In 1981, I was living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in the supermarkets, they started to have "talking cash registers", that would announce the price of every item. As a customer, I was annoyed by all the noise produced, but it must have been worse for the poor cashiers that heard this during their whole shift.
Needless to say, the talking cash registers did not last long.
Talking cash registers never made it over the pond. The new tech appears in the US (and maybe Canada), and only some arrives here years later. Self-service checkouts took 10 years to make it. Talk about slow progress!