Barcode Scanners Part of Your Business Future
I wonder if many of us stop to recall the good old days before barcodes. Remember the neighbourhood grocery store where we’d stop for a loaf of bread and perhaps some licorice pipes?
Everything would be itemized on a bill pad, and added up the old fashioned way. Or the clerk would enter the price by hitting the manual keys of a cash register. We’d hand over our money and the cash drawer would fly open. Then our change would be counted back. When is the last time someone actually counted back your change?
When you stop to think of it, barcode technology is one of the things that has completely revolutionized the world of commerce. Today each box of crackers, and every plump grapefruit is scanned, magically added to our bill, and subtracted from the store’s inventory.
It wasn’t so long ago that the first real test of a barcode scanning system took place. It was in Cincinnati at a Kroger store, where employees placed codes printed on sticky paper on items for sale. It was the summer of 1972, and these first experimental codes were in the shape of a bullseye.
Due to barcode printing problems and smeared ink, the codes were often distorted and not readable. This problem was solved by developing a striped linear code that was printed in the direction the paper went through the printing press. That way, if there was any stretch, the code would just appear a bit taller, but would still remain readable.
Just two years later, in Troy Ohio, on June 26 1974, history was made. A gentleman by the name of Clyde Dawson approached the checkout counter at Marsh supermarket with a package of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum. Sharon Buchanan made the first official scan of an item actually being purchased at 8:01 that morning. Visitors to the Smithsonian Institution can now see that pack of ten sticks of gum, along with the receipt.
Today, as summer approaches and we tend to our backyard spaces, I sometimes marvel at the fact that every pot of petunias, every bag of soil, and every clay pot, has a barcode on it. However, there’s no barcode at the gas pump, or on the take-out coffee I picked up on the way home. Not yet anyway.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 3:46 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.