How Did the Bar Code Infiltrate the World?
A symbol that began as lines in the sand is now used everywhere
Every product you purchase in a store has one. Every book you borrow from a library has one. Every airline ticket has one. Yet it is something you rarely think about: the bar code. The bar code is a simple printed or displayed code made up of a varying array of thick and thin black bars, but it is one of the most powerful little pieces of technology ever invented.
It Started as Lines in the Sand
Strange as it sounds, Joe Woodland drew the first bar code in the sand while he was in Miami Beach in January of 1949. A friend of Joe’s, Bernard “Bob” Silver, had mentioned to him that he was listening in on a conversation between a supermarket manager and a dean at Philadelphia’s Drexel Institute of Technology. The manager was frustrated at how long it was taking for shoppers to check out in his store and wondered if Drexel could come up with a solution.
Woodland, an inventor, was intrigued. As he sat on the beach, he thought about the problem and in a flash of inspiration, Morse Code popped into his mind…
