The history of the barcode
The barcode was invented in the late 1940s and has since gained enormous importance for automatic identification and data capture across various industries. Today it is everywhere, used in countless applications, from supermarkets to the medical field. So where did it come from? This article traces the history of the barcode, looks at what came before it, describes how the barcode system developed, and considers where it is used and where it is heading.
Capturing and storing goods and information automatically is not a new idea. Mechanical tally frames and punched cards were already doing that work in the 19th century. The 1940s brought the first attempts to use optical codes for data capture. They never caught on, because the technology was difficult and the uses were limited. It was the barcode that finally made automatic data capture work.
The barcode goes back to two students at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver. In the 1940s the two set out to find a way to capture data automatically. They experimented with various optical codes that could be printed, glued, or painted onto packaging. What they wanted was a system that was easy to print and easy to read, hard-wearing, and cheap to produce.
In 1949 Woodland hit on the idea. He remembered the Morse code he had learned as a Boy Scout and saw that a sequence of lines and gaps could be read simply and reliably. At a shopping center in Miami Beach, Woodland sat on the beach and drew lines and gaps in the sand, imitating Morse code to test whether the approach would work for data capture. He and Silver built the first barcode prototype from it, a plain pattern of lines and gaps.
Turning that into a practical system took several years. Through the 1950s various research groups worked on codes that could be used in industry. One important milestone was the Bullseye barcode system, invented by David Savir in 1959. It arranged segments in a circle, and they could be read optically. Other researchers built similar systems, but none of them caught on. The final breakthrough for automatic identification and data capture came with the barcode of the 1970s.
The first barcode actually used in a shop was the Universal Product Code (UPC). IBM developed the UPC together with the food industry to simplify buying and storing food. The first UPC scan, in an Ohio supermarket in 1974, was a pack of Wrigley's gum. The success was considerable, and the barcode spread quickly. Today it turns up in nearly every industry and application, in logistics as much as in consumer electronics.
Barcode technology has undergone numerous developments in recent decades. Codes grew more complex and can now run to several hundred or several thousand lines. 2D codes came along as well, holding more information in less space; the QR code and the data matrix code are examples. Scanners have improved too and are now fast and accurate. Wireless technology such as RFID (radio frequency identification) lets barcodes be read at a distance, which widens where they can be used.
The future of the barcode is promising. For automatic identification and data capture, the barcode remains an important tool. The technology is likely to grow more precise and more efficient. One area where barcodes may expand further is the Internet of Things (IoT). There, intelligent devices communicating with each other over wireless connections will play an important role. So the use of barcodes to identify items and track the flow of goods is expected to keep growing.
The barcode has a remarkable history. From a plain pattern of lines and gaps to its current status as an indispensable tool for data capture, it has come a long way. It is hard to picture how the economy and society would manage without this simple but effective technology. The barcode has revolutionized the way we identify and track goods and information, and it will keep playing an important role in the future.