How the Barcode System Was Invented

January 30th, 2010 · No Comments · 197

The barcode may be everywhere today, but it is a relatively recent invention. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and so it was with the barcode. Overhearing a local merchant’s request for a quick-method system to read product information at the checkout counter, graduate student Bernard Silver and his friend, Norman Woodland, started working on a number of systems. Previous attempts at developing a similar system using punch cards never caught on due to the prohibitive equipment costs and the Great Depression.

Silver was so enthused by the problem, he continued pursuing it without funding. The first system he and Woodland developed used ultraviolet ink, but it proved both too expensive and untrustworthy, as the ink faded. He later claimed that Morse code gave him the inspiration that led to his first successful barcode design. He took the Morse code dots and dashes and put them in rows.

He then used technology developed for movie soundtracks to read it, but was moved to change the box design to a bullseye so it could be read in any direction. Silver and Woodland received their first patent for the new technology in 1952. By this time they had started working at IBM whose initial evaluation of the project concluded it was feasible but needed specific technological developments before it could be commercially viable.

Early barcode scanner prototypes indicated that the technology could work. The prototype was simply too large, and the technology for reducing it in size was unavailable in the 1950s. While IBM offered to purchase the patent for far less than it was worth, Silver and Woodland persevered. In 1962, Philco bought the patents. Before the project with Philco could go very far Bernard Silver was killed in a car crash.

Meanwhile it was becoming clear that barcode scanning technology could be used by grocery stores who were trying to maintain the right amount of inventory, and railroads struggling to keep track of their many cars. The railroad industry, still very strong in those days, adopted a system similar to the barcode

This alternative system was developed by David Collins and promoted by Sylvania. Collins recognized the application of the technology to industries other than railroads, but Sylvania was not interested. As a result Collins left his arrangement with Sylvania and created his own company called Computer Identics Corporation. Meanwhile Philco sold the barcode patent rights to RCA.

By the late 1960s we were beginning to see the forerunners of todays “big box stores” and they needed more convenient and reliable ways to control their inventory. Manufacturing companies also needed this type of technology.

The first installations made by Computer Identics were relatively crude systems placed in a Michigan General Motors plant and a warehouse in New Jersey owned by the General Trading Company. Kroger offered to test-drive the laser-guided system RCA was developing. By the 1970s IBM became involved in barcode technology development again and put Norman Woodland in charge of their project. Barcode technology’s future had finally arrived.