July 29, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, a barcode on most products, properly called a UPC, or “Universal Product Code,” is a necessity for everyday life. Here’s the History Guy with the story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of
thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube. The
History Guy has also heard here and our American stories.
Bar codes on most products properly called a UPC or
(00:33):
universal product code, or a necessity for everyday life. Here's
the History Guy with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They've become so common that they're on virtually every consumer
product that you might buy, from a box of cookies
to an action figure, to every automobile that has been
built since nineteen eighty one. There are on mail. They're
unscannable tickets in COVID concerns. They were used to access
restaurant menus. Bark moods have become so ubiquitous that we
(01:02):
take them for granted. But barcodes are an absolute necessity
in the modern world. There would allow the vast and
complex trade networks and supply chains of the modern world
to function. According to GS one, which is a nonprofit
that maintains barcode standards, there were some five billion barcode
scanned every day in twenty twelve. It is history that
(01:26):
deserves to be remembered. Humans have engaged in trade from
millennia far back into prehistory. For most of human existence,
this was done by bartering, impromptu trading sessions that involve
personal negotiations of goods and services without any money involved.
As societies grew more complex, bartering became less convenient, especially
when humans introduced civilization and the concept of government. Civilizations grew,
(01:49):
economies developed, and trade grew increasingly complex. In the ancient
Middle East, civilizations like the Acadians and the Sumerians developed
writing largely to keep records, and one of the most
important uses of records was in trade. At its most basic,
the concept of a bar code was to automate and
streamline that system so that businesses and manufacturers and transit
(02:09):
systems could keep track of the millions of items that
are moved and sold at countless retailers, trading centers, and
factories every day. The twenty first century and the development
of consumer culture further complicated selling items using price booklets
or memory. Huge varieties of branded products would massively increase
the number and kind of products, so that whole aisles
could be filled with the same product being sold at
(02:30):
different prices by different companies and became impossible for a
salesperson to memorize even a fraction of a store's prices.
In nineteen forty eight, Philadelphia Drexel Institute of Technology graduate
named Bernard Bob Silver instead have overheard a conversation between
a supermarket manager and the Dean of engineering at Drexel.
The manager was hoping that the dean could consider working
(02:50):
on some way of automating the checkout process so that
shoppers could move through the store more quickly. After all,
in nineteen forty eight, the cashier head to manually check
each item, determine a price, and add that together for
a total. According to the story, the dean was uninterested,
but Silver was intrigued and confident that there was a solution.
Silver mentioned the conversation to fellow Drexel student Norman Joseph Woodland,
(03:11):
who began working on some concepts. It was quickly convinced
that a workable solution could be found. One of the
first concepts was used patterns of ink that would glow
under ultipolet light, and the pair built a device to
test the idea. While at work, they found that the
ink faded and was too expensive. Woodland decided to dedicate
himself to the problem. He left his teaching job at
the university and cashed in some stocks to tide him
(03:34):
over while he worked and went to live in an
apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. While working
in Miami Beach, he had his epiphany. According to Woodland,
he was sitting on the beach thinking when the solution
presented itself. He had learned Morse code as a boy
scout and considered the long and short sounds by drawing
them physically on the sand. He described the moment. I
(03:56):
remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I
poked my four fingers into the sand, and for whatever
reason I didn't know, I pulled my hand towards me
and I had four lines, and I said, golly, now
I have four lines, and they could be widelines and
narrow lines instead of dots and dashes. Now I have
a better chance of finding the Doggonde. Then only seconds later,
I took my four fingers they were still in the sand,
(04:17):
and I swept them around in a circle. First Barcode
was drawn out in the sand on Miami Beach. We
then returned to Drexel with his new idea, which still
faced the problem of how to read the data once
it was encoded in the binary barcode. He turned to
another technology to find the solution. In nineteen nineteen, inventor
Lee de Forest was awarded several patents that he used
(04:39):
to develop the optical sound on film technology, the technology
necessary to create the first talkie films. The FOURT system
printed a pattern along a film strip that varied the
amount of transparency, and then shone a light through the
film as the picture ran. A sensitive tude could then
translate the shifts in brightness and convert the information to sound.
(05:00):
Dland needed was a light and a similar sensitive tube
to detect the information. During their work, they chose to
change the design from linear bars to concentric circles of
varying thickness, creating the bullseye barcode. The idea of the
bull'seye code was that it could be read from any direction.
In nineteen fifty one, the pair set out to build
the first barcode reader in Woodland's living room. The initial
(05:20):
device was the size of a desk, had to be
completely wrapped in oilcloth to keep out any ambient light.
It used a bright light and an RCA nine thirty
five photo multiplier tube originally designed for the sound on
film systems to read the data. The light was so
bright that as they tested the device some of the
paper printed with barcodes actually began smoldering, but they proved
using an acillioscope that the system could read information from
(05:41):
the bar codes. Of course, there remained several practical issues
with the invention. Installing them across the country was impossible
given the expense of the five hundred watt bulb, which
created an enormous amount of waste heat. That bulb was
an awful thing to look at. Woodland later said it
could cause eye damage. What they needed was a way
to focus a large amount of light with little heat
(06:04):
and in a more compact space, but in nineteen fifty
one lasers didn't exist. They were awarded the patent for
the designs and apparatus on October seventh, nineteen fifty two.
The year before. Woodland had been hired by IBM, and
both he and Silver helped to convince the company to
pursue the technology by continually pestering IBM to take a
(06:25):
look at the concept. IBM finally commissioned to report on
the concept in the late nineteen fifties, which concluded that
the concept was interesting, but as of then impossible to
implement without further technological advancement. IBM did allegedly offer to
buy the patent, but not at the price that the
inventors thought was sufficient. The patent only granted Woodland and
Silver seventeen years of protection, and time was rapidly running
(06:46):
out for them to effectively make money on their invention,
and so in nineteen sixty two, when phil Co, a
pioneer in battery radio and television production, offered to buy
the patent for fifteen thousand dollars, they accepted. This would
be the only money the pair made off their invention. Here,
Bob Silver died of bronco pneumonia brought on by leukemia
at age thirty eight. Phil Co would later sell the
patent to RCA somewhere in the nineteen sixties. In nineteen
(07:10):
sixty six, the National Association of Food Chains had a
meeting on automated checkout systems. RCA, which on Woodland and
Silver's original patent, was at the meeting and began working
on a project to deliver a checkout scanner. In the
mid seventies, the NAFC established the ad Hoc Committee for
US Supermarkets on Uniform Grocery Product Code to manage competing
technologies and standardized an approach. The ad Hoc Committee developed
(07:32):
an eleven number code and asked companies to design a
system to read it. RCA attracted attention for their bullseye
code in nineteen seventy one, and IBM decided to develop
a competing technology. Someone remembered that Joe Woodland still worked
at the company and began a new facility in North
Carolina with Woodland to make it happen. George lara Or,
a longtime IBUM employee, came to the conclusion that the
(07:53):
bullseye pattern wouldn't work when you run a circle through
a high speed press. There are parts that are always
going to get smeared. He recalled called RCA was learning
this at the same time at a test store in Cincinnati,
So Lauer came up with his own code using vertical lines,
ironically similar to Woodland's original concept. It took some time
to develop a system that was small enough to fit
(08:13):
on most products while still being readable. Eventually, based on
a barcode called Delta C developed by Bill Krause. The
Delta SEA system was robust and able to read even damaged, dirty,
or bent codes. The UPC code was born, and in
nineteen seventy three it was established as the standard for
the National Association of Food Chains. IBM developed the IBM
(08:35):
thirty six sixty scanner with a digital point of sale
terminal UPC's. The grocery industry, from supplies to supermarkets, adopted
the technology wholesale. On June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four,
Clyde Dawson, head of R and D with Marsh Supermarket,
handed over a multi pack of Wrigley's gom which became
the first UPC code to be scanned. Came out to
(08:56):
sixty nine cents. Dawson later said he chose gum specifically
because of small size to prove the usefulness of the barcode.
In nineteen ninety two, Woodland was awarded the National Medal
of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor of the US
can confer to a US citizen for technological achievement. It
took a while for barcodes to fully catch on, but
of course they did, largely facilitated with large chains like
(09:18):
Kmart and Walmart started using them. Perhaps one of the
most important of the early adopters of barcodes was the
United States Military, which is their own code called the
Code thirty nine. Now barcodes are on all sorts of products.
They're used for stock checking and inventory maintenance, and of
course for checkout scanning. Since the nineteen seventies, the types
(09:39):
of barcodes have proliferated to things that don't even really
look like barcodes, so called two D barcodes, like the
QR code and data matrix and MaxiCode A during all
sorts of products. A bar code with a vehicle identification
number has been required in all newly manufactured automobiles in
the United States since nineteen eighty one, and barcodes have
been required on pharmaceuticals since two thousand and four. You know, way,
(10:01):
the way a society at tracts Daddy as a hallmark
of civilization begun millennia ago when the Mesopotamians first started
to develop writing, computers and lasers, and especially are barcodes.
They're really just part of a long string of technologies
that have been built to facilitate commerce and make civilization
just a little bit easier.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And a terrific job on the editing by Greg Hangler
and the production and a special thanks to the History Guy.
If you want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe
to his YouTube channel, The History Guy colon history deserves
to be remembered. The story of the barcode here on
our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of
thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube. The
History Guy has also heard here and our American stories.
Bar codes on most products properly called a UPC or
(00:33):
universal product code, or a necessity for everyday life. Here's
the History Guy with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They've become so common that they're on virtually every consumer
product that you might buy, from a box of cookies
to an action figure, to every automobile that has been
built since nineteen eighty one. There are on mail. They're
unscannable tickets in COVID concerns. They were used to access
restaurant menus. Bark moods have become so ubiquitous that we
(01:02):
take them for granted. But barcodes are an absolute necessity
in the modern world. There would allow the vast and
complex trade networks and supply chains of the modern world
to function. According to GS one, which is a nonprofit
that maintains barcode standards, there were some five billion barcode
scanned every day in twenty twelve. It is history that
(01:26):
deserves to be remembered. Humans have engaged in trade from
millennia far back into prehistory. For most of human existence,
this was done by bartering, impromptu trading sessions that involve
personal negotiations of goods and services without any money involved.
As societies grew more complex, bartering became less convenient, especially
when humans introduced civilization and the concept of government. Civilizations grew,
(01:49):
economies developed, and trade grew increasingly complex. In the ancient
Middle East, civilizations like the Acadians and the Sumerians developed
writing largely to keep records, and one of the most
important uses of records was in trade. At its most basic,
the concept of a bar code was to automate and
streamline that system so that businesses and manufacturers and transit
(02:09):
systems could keep track of the millions of items that
are moved and sold at countless retailers, trading centers, and
factories every day. The twenty first century and the development
of consumer culture further complicated selling items using price booklets
or memory. Huge varieties of branded products would massively increase
the number and kind of products, so that whole aisles
could be filled with the same product being sold at
(02:30):
different prices by different companies and became impossible for a
salesperson to memorize even a fraction of a store's prices.
In nineteen forty eight, Philadelphia Drexel Institute of Technology graduate
named Bernard Bob Silver instead have overheard a conversation between
a supermarket manager and the Dean of engineering at Drexel.
The manager was hoping that the dean could consider working
(02:50):
on some way of automating the checkout process so that
shoppers could move through the store more quickly. After all,
in nineteen forty eight, the cashier head to manually check
each item, determine a price, and add that together for
a total. According to the story, the dean was uninterested,
but Silver was intrigued and confident that there was a solution.
Silver mentioned the conversation to fellow Drexel student Norman Joseph Woodland,
(03:11):
who began working on some concepts. It was quickly convinced
that a workable solution could be found. One of the
first concepts was used patterns of ink that would glow
under ultipolet light, and the pair built a device to
test the idea. While at work, they found that the
ink faded and was too expensive. Woodland decided to dedicate
himself to the problem. He left his teaching job at
the university and cashed in some stocks to tide him
(03:34):
over while he worked and went to live in an
apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. While working
in Miami Beach, he had his epiphany. According to Woodland,
he was sitting on the beach thinking when the solution
presented itself. He had learned Morse code as a boy
scout and considered the long and short sounds by drawing
them physically on the sand. He described the moment. I
(03:56):
remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I
poked my four fingers into the sand, and for whatever
reason I didn't know, I pulled my hand towards me
and I had four lines, and I said, golly, now
I have four lines, and they could be widelines and
narrow lines instead of dots and dashes. Now I have
a better chance of finding the Doggonde. Then only seconds later,
I took my four fingers they were still in the sand,
(04:17):
and I swept them around in a circle. First Barcode
was drawn out in the sand on Miami Beach. We
then returned to Drexel with his new idea, which still
faced the problem of how to read the data once
it was encoded in the binary barcode. He turned to
another technology to find the solution. In nineteen nineteen, inventor
Lee de Forest was awarded several patents that he used
(04:39):
to develop the optical sound on film technology, the technology
necessary to create the first talkie films. The FOURT system
printed a pattern along a film strip that varied the
amount of transparency, and then shone a light through the
film as the picture ran. A sensitive tude could then
translate the shifts in brightness and convert the information to sound.
(05:00):
Dland needed was a light and a similar sensitive tube
to detect the information. During their work, they chose to
change the design from linear bars to concentric circles of
varying thickness, creating the bullseye barcode. The idea of the
bull'seye code was that it could be read from any direction.
In nineteen fifty one, the pair set out to build
the first barcode reader in Woodland's living room. The initial
(05:20):
device was the size of a desk, had to be
completely wrapped in oilcloth to keep out any ambient light.
It used a bright light and an RCA nine thirty
five photo multiplier tube originally designed for the sound on
film systems to read the data. The light was so
bright that as they tested the device some of the
paper printed with barcodes actually began smoldering, but they proved
using an acillioscope that the system could read information from
(05:41):
the bar codes. Of course, there remained several practical issues
with the invention. Installing them across the country was impossible
given the expense of the five hundred watt bulb, which
created an enormous amount of waste heat. That bulb was
an awful thing to look at. Woodland later said it
could cause eye damage. What they needed was a way
to focus a large amount of light with little heat
(06:04):
and in a more compact space, but in nineteen fifty
one lasers didn't exist. They were awarded the patent for
the designs and apparatus on October seventh, nineteen fifty two.
The year before. Woodland had been hired by IBM, and
both he and Silver helped to convince the company to
pursue the technology by continually pestering IBM to take a
(06:25):
look at the concept. IBM finally commissioned to report on
the concept in the late nineteen fifties, which concluded that
the concept was interesting, but as of then impossible to
implement without further technological advancement. IBM did allegedly offer to
buy the patent, but not at the price that the
inventors thought was sufficient. The patent only granted Woodland and
Silver seventeen years of protection, and time was rapidly running
(06:46):
out for them to effectively make money on their invention,
and so in nineteen sixty two, when phil Co, a
pioneer in battery radio and television production, offered to buy
the patent for fifteen thousand dollars, they accepted. This would
be the only money the pair made off their invention. Here,
Bob Silver died of bronco pneumonia brought on by leukemia
at age thirty eight. Phil Co would later sell the
patent to RCA somewhere in the nineteen sixties. In nineteen
(07:10):
sixty six, the National Association of Food Chains had a
meeting on automated checkout systems. RCA, which on Woodland and
Silver's original patent, was at the meeting and began working
on a project to deliver a checkout scanner. In the
mid seventies, the NAFC established the ad Hoc Committee for
US Supermarkets on Uniform Grocery Product Code to manage competing
technologies and standardized an approach. The ad Hoc Committee developed
(07:32):
an eleven number code and asked companies to design a
system to read it. RCA attracted attention for their bullseye
code in nineteen seventy one, and IBM decided to develop
a competing technology. Someone remembered that Joe Woodland still worked
at the company and began a new facility in North
Carolina with Woodland to make it happen. George lara Or,
a longtime IBUM employee, came to the conclusion that the
(07:53):
bullseye pattern wouldn't work when you run a circle through
a high speed press. There are parts that are always
going to get smeared. He recalled called RCA was learning
this at the same time at a test store in Cincinnati,
So Lauer came up with his own code using vertical lines,
ironically similar to Woodland's original concept. It took some time
to develop a system that was small enough to fit
(08:13):
on most products while still being readable. Eventually, based on
a barcode called Delta C developed by Bill Krause. The
Delta SEA system was robust and able to read even damaged, dirty,
or bent codes. The UPC code was born, and in
nineteen seventy three it was established as the standard for
the National Association of Food Chains. IBM developed the IBM
(08:35):
thirty six sixty scanner with a digital point of sale
terminal UPC's. The grocery industry, from supplies to supermarkets, adopted
the technology wholesale. On June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four,
Clyde Dawson, head of R and D with Marsh Supermarket,
handed over a multi pack of Wrigley's gom which became
the first UPC code to be scanned. Came out to
(08:56):
sixty nine cents. Dawson later said he chose gum specifically
because of small size to prove the usefulness of the barcode.
In nineteen ninety two, Woodland was awarded the National Medal
of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor of the US
can confer to a US citizen for technological achievement. It
took a while for barcodes to fully catch on, but
of course they did, largely facilitated with large chains like
(09:18):
Kmart and Walmart started using them. Perhaps one of the
most important of the early adopters of barcodes was the
United States Military, which is their own code called the
Code thirty nine. Now barcodes are on all sorts of products.
They're used for stock checking and inventory maintenance, and of
course for checkout scanning. Since the nineteen seventies, the types
(09:39):
of barcodes have proliferated to things that don't even really
look like barcodes, so called two D barcodes, like the
QR code and data matrix and MaxiCode A during all
sorts of products. A bar code with a vehicle identification
number has been required in all newly manufactured automobiles in
the United States since nineteen eighty one, and barcodes have
been required on pharmaceuticals since two thousand and four. You know, way,
(10:01):
the way a society at tracts Daddy as a hallmark
of civilization begun millennia ago when the Mesopotamians first started
to develop writing, computers and lasers, and especially are barcodes.
They're really just part of a long string of technologies
that have been built to facilitate commerce and make civilization
just a little bit easier.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And a terrific job on the editing by Greg Hangler
and the production and a special thanks to the History Guy.
If you want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe
to his YouTube channel, The History Guy colon history deserves
to be remembered. The story of the barcode here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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