I guess we're showing our age. Ours was a "modern" up to date electrical model (circa 1960s) with a few separate banks, 2 paper feeds - customer receipt, and internal "audit" tape. But it was still made of about 100#s of brass, with mechanical pop-up number flags.

One nice feature was that the draw release was mechanical, so the draw opened with a speed or force proportional to how hard you hit the key. This could break up the monotony of a really bad day, when Tony would be frustrated and bang it open hard enough for the change to fly out when the draw hit the end of the track (you had to be there).

Anyway, NCRs had a little bell that rang whenever you opened the draw, which is the genesis of the phrase "to ring up the sale" I sometimes wonder how many generations it'll take before that phrase disappears and is replaced with something more current. I doubt "I'll chirp up the sale" make it.