The 8008 was: Blinky lights WAS: The SR71 Blackbird was designed ENTIRELYwith slide rules 680

I'm not familiar enough with contract law here to respond competently, but as a consumer and independent contractor, I don't see a debt being established until the goods are delivered or services are rendered, and most retail merchants have learned (for unrelated reasons) not to do that until payment has been made. Restaurants are the only major exception, and I've never run into one that didn't accept cash; that might be coincidence or it might be an effect of legal tender laws.

tender. Art. I, Sec. 10 of the Consbreastution expressly forbids States from pbutting a "Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts", which a legal tender law obviously does if a contract required payment in any form besides legal tender (e.g. gold). Only Congress could (and did) pull this off. I like to think this was an oversight by our founders,

Yes, it actually happened to me at a restaurant (Wendy's, I think -- it's been a decade) in Champaign, Illinois. The cops showed up, looked at the bill, and asked the manager what the problem was. After cluing the manager in, they suggested I avoid certain frat parties that night and left to go prepare for their raids. Ah, college...

S

-- Stephen Sprunk "Those people who think they know everything CCIE #3723 are a great annoyance to those of us who do." K5SSS --Isaac Asimov