Barcodes are small symbolic patterns that relay information about the identity of a product. For the most part, we now take this technology for granted, but barcode technology has become critical in the business world.
The first used of early barcode technology was for keeping track of railroad cars. But barcodes didn’t become part of our everyday life until they were adopted by supermarkets.|But the barcode’s true commercial niche was in automating supermarket checkout systems.}
Now, barcode scanning is implemented by the US Post Office, The Department of Defense, and just about every industrial application you can think of. Barcodes got their start with the research initially done by Bernard Silver and Joseph Woodland in the late 1940s. While working at IBM Woodland developed a system based on extending Morse Code in a graphical manner.
What Woodland and his team did was to extend the dots and dashes of the code into narrow or wide vertical lines capable of being interpreted by a reader. The paper would then be passed in front of a photo cell and a bright light would be shone through the paper. Later, a bulls-eye pattern was used so that scanning would work in either direction.
At first, barcode scanning was unreliable and expensive as it required investments from large corporations willing to test the technology’s potential. It wasn’t until 1961 that The Boston and Maine Railroads tested the system on gravel cars. Right around the same time the idea was being discussed by the large grocery chains in the U.S.
It was the Kroger chain who first volunteered to test the RCA system based on the bulls-eye code. And by 1969, Computer Identics; a company formed by David Collins of the Pennsylvania Railroad, installed the first two systems at General Motors in Pontiac, Michigan and The General Trading Company in Carlstadt, New Jersey. These, among other initial financiers allowed barcode use to prove itself as viable in many different environments. But the most common use for this technology is in the grocery and retail industry. It helps businesses to improve trade efficiency and as a result, the economy as a whole.
The Universal Product Code (UPC) became the barcode standard in the mid 1970s. This was an 11 digit code to identify any product, and since then, industry has not been the same. Barcodes really came into their with the development of the standard 11 digit UPC. By 1980, barcode scanner systems were being implemented by more than 8000 new stores per year.