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Wallace Flint was the first person to suggest an automated checkout system in 1932. But the history of modern barcode begun only in 1948, when Bernard Silver, a graduate student of Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, asked his friend Norman Woodland to develop a system to automatically read product information during checkout. The first coding system was developed by Woodland, a twenty-seven-year-old graduate of the same institute. On October 7, 1952, Woodland and his friend Silver were awarded a patent for this invention named "Classifying Apparatus and Method." Woodland's first idea was to use patterns of ink that would glow under ultraviolet light. The barcode Woodland and Silver developed was a "bull's eye" symbol, made up of a series of concentric circles. Later, the barcode was made up of a pattern of four white lines on a dark background. Information was coded and classified in these lines. The barcode was first commercialized in 1967, when RCA installed the first scanning systems at a Kroger store in Cincinnati. In 1969, NAFC asked Logicon. Inc. to develop an industry-wide barcode system. They developed Part 1 and 2 of the UGPIC (Universal Grocery Products Identification Code) in 1970. Based on this, a Uniform Grocery Product Code was formed. In 1973, the U.S. Supermarket Ad Hoc Committee recommended the adoption of the UPC symbol set, which is still in use. This was developed by George Laurer of IBM. In June 1974, the first UPC scanner was installed at Marsh's supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was developed by NCR Corp. The first product scanned was ten-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The industrial application of barcodes began in late 1950s, and in 1967, the Association of American Railroad adopted an optical barcode, but it was abandoned in 1970. In September 1981, the United States Department of Defense adopted the use of Code 39 for marking all products sold by the United States military, called LOGMARS. This was the event that popularized barcodes. Today, this is a billion dollar business. In 1962, Silver died, and in 1992, Woodland was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Bush. Bar Codes provides detailed information on bar codes, bar code printers, bar code scanners, bar code labels and more. Bar Codes is affiliated with Bar Code Label Software. |
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