How hard will it be to set the gas pumps for more than $10 per gallon?

Factual Questions
1

When gasoline went over $1.00/gallon, they needed some hacks because the mechanical gas pumps of the day only had two digits for the price. Most stations set the price to half of the the actual. The attendant came out with a calculator and multiplied the amount on the pump by two.

With the electronic pumps we have today, it could be just a matter of changing software but the display of the price may not have a enough digits. Maybe they could eliminate the 9/10 of a cent to make room. will it be just software, or will they need to modify the hardware?

2

I wonder if they could do sort of the complement of that half the price per gallon times 2 and instead start selling gasoline by the half gallon or quart? If so, a pump limited to $9.99 per unit volume (currently one gallon) could sell gas for not quite $10/quart or not quite $40/gallon.

3

Technology has overcome greater challenges than this.

4

Start selling gas by the liter like most countries do. Problem solved.

5

That’s certainly where I got the idea. Although this being the USA we’ll almost certainly be doing it by the quart.

6

Dropping off that silly .9 at the end would give them one digit to work with]

7

About 1980 when retail gasoline prices first went over $1, selling by the liter is exactly what one local gas station in my home town in western New York did. Presumably the dispensers were manufactured to allow that either because the manufacturer hoped to sell the model in Canada or had a misplaced optimism about the impending switch to the metric system in the U.S. Sometime later that station got new dispensers that could handle prices over a dollar and they immediately started selling by the gallon again.

8

In the short term, if it just rolls over $10, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a leading “1” added as a sticker. And then gradually machines would be updated if it was the new reality.

9

But are the displays able to put a decimal point after the first two digits instead of one?

10

That takes me back. I remember doubling the cost at the pump to get the actual price

11

Long long ago I remember in northern Canada, where transport was expensive, the pumps had the notice “price is double what the pump shows.” Then they switched to litres, got new pumps with 3 digits, and now we’re safe here until gas hits $10.00.1 a litre. (approx $US27.74/gal) which shouldn’t be for another few weeks. :smiley:

12

That was the era when everyone thought the US was going to be switching to metric any day now. The two liter soda bottle was introduced in the mid-1970s based on that same reasoning.

13

In my area, they did sell by the half gallon during the 1973 oil crisis. In fact, I don’t recall any stations doing the price-is-double thing.

That was also common where I lived during that crisis. I even had a little pamphlet with a table of conversions from $/liter to $/gallon so you could compare the per-liter price to one more familiar.

14

Back in the days of fixed-physical-wheels pumps, that’s what Puerto Rico did and just kept it like that since as a permanent thing (later tax changes meant our trailing decimal became .7 instead of .9). So the station near home yesterday displayed regular at 95.7, premium at 106.7.

15

Ack, never mind; I completely spaced on this being FQ.

16

I pumped gas in high school (1978-1982). It was gallons at the start but switched to liters before it went to $1 a gallon. When Reagan abolished the U.S. Metric Board we went back to gallons and had to do the stupid doubling the price on the pump thing. I moved on to better jobs before the switch to non-reel digital displays.

17

I just pumped gas today and took a good look at the display on the pump. It starts with three prices for regular, middle, and premium. When you make your selection, two of the three price displays go blank. The decimal points stay on though. They could be hard wired or they could use jumpers.

18

In addition to pumps that can only show 99.9c/gallon, there are enough different brands and models of gas pumps out there, that I’m sure at least some, somewhere, will only have a “half digit” display for the most significant digit. Built to show 199.9/litre, and can show up to $199.9 / gallon, but not built to show more than “1” at the left. This is a very common kind of display, used to represent numbers up to 1023, which is a very common number for 10-bit ADC’s, and up to 1999 because it is cheaper and more compact than a display that can show 9999.

But even for those pumps, most of them would be able to set to 25.5, with a bit of tape over the decimal point, and do the math somewhere else to get 255.0.

Problem with that would be pumps that do direct credit card debit, but (1) Pumps that take credit cards can probably don’t have 3.5 digit displays, and (2) Pumps that do credit cards probably have enough software somewhere that they can multiply the display by 10 even if the display decimal point is in the wrong position.

Note: as well as the price display, you are also going to find problems with the total display. Can it show over $999.99 total?