Barcode and trains

The idea for this article came to me when I saw this IBM brochure:

The subject of supermarkets and computers is very familiar to me and has pushed me to know something more about the barcode that we find everywhere today, not just at the supermarket.

I then documented and discovered that the first use of barcodes was on trains. In practice, the various wagons were identified precisely through a barcode, in this case in colour.
The idea started by taking inspiration from the Morse alphabet and we arrive at the invention in the forties.
After some years of study formalized the idea in a patent in 1952, experimentation in American supermarkets began in the 60s and 70s, but the boom began only in the 80s.

I noticed that the period of definition and choice of standards was really long, we talk about decades, and there are dozens of different encodings, we can never do a simple thing.

If you want to learn more about some links below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/
https://www.barcodesinc.com/articles/history-of-barcode-scanners.htm

Comments