The lines and spaces are of varying thicknesses and printed in different combinations. The Technology of the Bar CodeĪ linear bar code is a binary code (1s and 0s). Consequently, the accuracy of the scanning was poor. The system failed, however, to take into account that freight cars bounced as they passed the scanner. As the freight car rolled past a trackside scanner, it was to be identified and, inferentially, its destination and cargo. It was not a particularly successful use.īar codes were placed on the sides of railroad freight cars. Fifteen years were to pass before the first commercial use of the bar code. Much to the inventor’s surprise, however, it was not a rapid commercial success. Three years later that graduate student Joseph Woodland and his partner received a patent on what began as lines in the sand, and the linear bar code was born. As his fingers elongated the dashes he looked at the result and said, “Hey, I’ve got it.” Then, one day as he relaxed at the beach, he idly drew dots and dashes in the sand. He believed that the dots and dashes of Morse code would to be a good model, but he could not figure out how to use those familiar patterns to solve his problem. In 1949, a young graduate student was wrestling with the concept of automatically capturing information about a product.

Brown, Uniform Code Council Beginnings of the Bar Code

Upc barcode