Get Personalized Help

The Barcode Lady

Price Marking, Barcode, Ribbons & Ink Cartridges

Call us at 800-827-9695

  • The Barcode Lady Difference
    • Our Promise
    • Client Testimonials
    • How We Help Your Business
    • Value vs. Price
  • Products
    • Scanners
    • Barcode Printers
    • Barcode Labels and Thermal Ribbons
    • Price Guns
    • Price Gun Labels
    • Receipt Paper Rolls
    • Retail Sign Cards and Shelf Numbers
    • Custom Price Gun Labels
    • Custom Specialty Labels
    • Security Tags and Labels
    • Point of Sale Solutions
  • Our Catalogs
  • Barcode Solutions
    • Advice for Retail
    • Advice for Warehousing
    • Advice for Manufacturing
  • Get Personalized Help
  •  

How did it start? What is a barcode?

September 19, 2014 By The Barcode Lady

Put simply, a barcode is a machine-readable representation of data, either in one-dimension or two-dimension format. The benefits of barcoding are speed of data entry and accuracy. Black and white bars or matrix patterns are used to create the barcode, and depending on whether it is 1-D or 2-D. A 1-D barcode appears as vertical black and white lines, commonly seen on the products on our grocery and retail stores. A 2-D barcode will look like little black and white squares stacked on each other. The most common and public usage of 2-D barcode is by FedEx. They use 2-D PDF 417 barcode to track every package they ship.

The first bar code patent was issued in 1952 to Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver, using what looked like a bulls-eye symbol that was made of concentric circles. Bar codes were used as far back as 1932 when a group of students who did a project where they required customers to select their merchandise by removing the correct punch cards from the catalog that corresponded with the items that they wanted. In 1970, the Uniform Grocery Product Code Council and McKinsey & Co. created a numeric format for product identification in bar codes. In 1973, George J. Laurer invented the UPC (Universal Product Code) that we know today. Commercial bar codes were not used until the mid to late 1960s, and the initial application was for industrial use. Some of the early adopters of barcode technology were the railroads and the US Postal Service.

In 1967,bar codes were used on the American Railroad, known as KarTrak. It took almost 7 years before there was 95% coverage of the fleet, but the project was ultimately abandoned in 1975 because of the technical difficulties in reading the barcodes. At that time, a similar technology call RFID (radio frequency identification) became available but was considered far too expensive, so it was not used. However by 1991 RFID technology had improved and become less expensive and it became mandatory for all rail cars to be identified with an RFID tag.

The US Post started studying applications and uses for barcodes in mail delivery during the early 1970’s and by 1982 the US Postal Service implemented the POSTNET code for tracking mail delivery across the United States. Within five years the US Post had installed barcoding systems in most every major city in the US.

The actual first invention of the barcode was done by the Irish, and likely based on the Irish alphabet from the first centuries AD, which looks like a form of bar code itself. Today, barcodes have a variety of applications, including identifying retail products, mail sorting, warehouse use, and even for patient identification and tracking in hospitals.

About The Author: Godex International is an engineering company that specializes in designing and manufacturing BARCODE PRINTING products that lead the industry in the value price, high performance category. Godex has offices in the US, Europe, Taiwan and China and its products are distributed world-wide.

The Barcode Lady LLC is proud to be a distributor for the Godex line of barcode printers, label design software, re-winders and scanners.

Filed Under: Advice for Manufacturing, Advice for Retail, Advice for Warehousing, Barcode Solutions

Get Personalized Help

The Barcode Lady prides ourselves in personal, caring service. Questions about any of our products? Contact us now.

Contact Barcode Lady

The Barcode Lady Newsletter

Periodically we send out industry information as well as updates and specials on products. Enter your name and email address below to receive these updates.

Categories

  • Advice for Manufacturing
  • Advice for Retail
  • Advice for Warehousing
  • Barcode Solutions

Archives

The Barcode Lady

  • Home
  • The Barcode Lady Difference
  • Products
  • Barcode Solutions
  • Get Personalized Help
  • Our Catalogs
  • Terms and Conditions

About Us

The Barcode Lady’s staff always delivers customer service that will exceed your expectations! Our customers come first and we do whatever it takes to make sure you know it. After 43 years of service, we’re doing something right. It is all about the relationship and when you work with The Barcode Lady and her team you are guaranteed personal service, top quality products, fast delivery at a fair price!
Read more...

Contact Us

Personal Service & Quality Products

Monday-Friday: 9am-5pm CST

11683 Lackland Road
St. Louis, MO 63146

800-827-9695 | 314-432-7900

Email us


Copyright © 2023 - All content owned by The Barcode Lady. Website created and managed by Worry Free Marketing, St. Louis. Sitemap.

Cleantalk Pixel