Some inventions are so subtle, ubiquitous and intricately woven into the fabric of our daily lives that they become difficult to notice at all. As a result, they are generally given short-shrift when it comes to larger, more obvious inventions. One such smaller invention that isn’t given its fair share of coverage is the barcode. One reason for this is that the barcode is difficult to classify. While it is obviously a concrete object, it can almost be considered more of a concept than an object. The barcode deserves recognition not only for its contribution to modern life, but for the advancements that it has inspired and made possible. By allowing physical objects to be quickly represented as data points, barcodes played a pivotal role in laying the groundwork for the ongoing data revolution that has found its way into nearly every industry in existence. For such an influential invention, very few people know very much about it and even fewer people are aware of its inventors and how it came to be invented. Here is a look at the history of that black-and-white-striped product companion, the barcode.
Inventors
The basic principle behind barcodes, the attachment of a corresponding symbol to a product so its sale and movement can be more easily tracked, was formulated in the 1930s. A group of students at Harvard Business School devised a system where shoppers looking at a catalogue would pick the products they wanted from the catalogue by punching a card from the catalogue. The punched cards could then be inserted into a card reader that produced a bill for the customer and could also update the inventory of the catalogue’s store. This rudimentary system laid the groundwork for the barcode process we are familiar with today. Two men named Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland are credited with inventing the actual bar code in 1948-1949 as graduate students.
Their Barcode
Silver and Woodland’s barcode shared many characteristics with the barcodes we know today: their invention was a pattern of white lines on a dark background that encoded information based on the layout of the lines. Though their invention was not as advanced as the barcodes of today, they made a truly significant advancement. Neither of the two men made much money on the invention. Silver died in 1962 before he had the opportunity to see the first commercial use of his barcode. In 1992, Woodland was recognized by President Bush with the National Medal of Technology.
Widespread Use
Modern barcodes have come a long way from their earliest days. Today, barcode equipment and software is more advanced than ever before and applicable to more and more industries each day. It took awhile, however, for the barcode to become so popular. In the 1960s, when the barcode was first commercialized, it was implemented in grocery stores to speed up the checkout process. By the 1970s, products were beginning to be outfitted with UPC codes specifically for this purpose. Industrial applications of barcodes soon followed, and by the 1980s the U.S. military was mandating that each product sold to them needed to be barcoded. The barcode systems of today are so advanced and flexible that they are useful to more people than ever before. Many companies who sell barcode products offer barcode equipment and barcode software rentals to these companies on a trial basis. The history of the barcode indicates that it is an invention with staying power.