This looks like a must for any collectors of space-age memorabilia: Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race, 1957-1962 by Megan Prelinger. We are familiar with Megan’s husband Rick’s amazing Prelinger Archives, the premier collection of industrial films from the 50s and 60s. The accompanying article in the New York Times by science writer Dennis Overbye provides a nice overview of the book along with a multimedia slideshow with images. Check it out.
Reaching for the Stars When Space Was a Thrill
March 9th, 2010Scanning the History of Bar Codes
November 11th, 2009Here’s another Retrofuture entry originally written in 1999 celebrating the futuristic applications of the bar code.
Giant leaps in technological progress are often measured in little, off-hand moments. Like the time, 25 years ago, that a supermarket clerk at Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, picked up a ten-pack of Wrigley’s spearmint gum and glided it carefully over a scanner. In the blink of an eye, the bar code revolution had begun!
These days, most of us take bar codes for granted (but not all of us—former President George Bush seemed positively astonished to see a bar code scanner on the campaign trail in 1992). Bar codes were even used to verify the authenticity of Mark McGwire’s record-setting baseballs in 1998.
The most famous application of a bar code may have been the giant symbol that ran on the cover of MAD magazine in April, 1978, accompanied by the sarcastic headline: “(MAD) Hopes This Issue Jams Every Computer in the Country…For Forcing Us To Deface Our Covers With This Yecchy UPC Symbol.”
The pranksters at MAD weren’t the only ones to openly express disdain for the newfangled technology. At first, shoppers weren’t so sure they liked them either. Instead of fast-moving lines, they experienced long and agonizing waits at the check-out counter as cashiers unfamiliar with the new technology searched up and down for the elusive bar code.
These prolonged displays of ineptitude left some customers wondering why these zebra-striped symbols were even necessary. Wasn’t a good old cash register faster and more reliable?
Fortunately, the situation improved (better scanners and familiarity with the process) and soon the technology began to deliver the faster lines and convenience it promised.
The bar code was hardly an overnight success story; in fact, it took almost thirty years to be adopted.
The story begins in 1948, when Bernard Silver and Norman J. Woodland devised a crude “Bull’s Eye Code” in hopes that it might one day be adopted as an automated checkout system. Silver and Woodland understood the antiquated cash register—long a fixture of retailing—could not maintain inventory or collect data. Their code could do that and more.
But, at first, the news was not encouraging. Computers were still too primitive, lasers had yet to be invented, and the response from industry was lukewarm.
The crucial turning point occurred in 1951 when the first optical character recognition (OCR) scanner was invented. This was the breakthrough that Silver and Woodland needed. Their revolution in retailing was finally possible.
Sixteen years later, the first bar code scanning system was installed at a Kroger Supermarket in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1967. But several kinks had yet to be ironed out. A major issue was uniformity. Hundreds of different bar codes potentially could create a full-scale retailing disaster. In response, in 1973, the Uniform Code Council was formed in Dayton, Ohio to establish the Universal Product Code.
One year later, on the outskirts of Dayton, the first UPC-reading scanner was installed at Marsh’s Supermarket. Industry experts flew in from all over the world—some as far away as Japan and Sweden—to witness the fabled ten-pack of Wrigley’s Gum being scanned. When the correct price appeared (67¢), a cheer rang out.
That was June 26, 1974. Twenty-five years later, hundreds of thousands companies are now using bar codes. And, thanks to library cards, the average person carries at least one bar code around in their wallet or pocketbook.
The bar code’s influence continues to grow. In hospitals, bar codes bracelets are attached to newborn babies to ensure their safety.
A few people are convinced the “Mark of the Beast” is hidden somewhere within the bar code as part of a vast global conspiracy. Although it seems a tad bit unlikely (wouldn’t the devil be surfing the net by now?) it does point out one fact: the bar code has finally arrived!
You may be wondering what happened to Silver and Woodland—the so-called “fathers of the bar code.” Neither reaped the rewards of their invention. But there was one delicious twist for Woodland: in 1992, he was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Technology by that barcode enthusiast President George Herbert Walker Bush.
2009 addendum: Wow, we had another President Bush…I’d almost forgotten! Also, here’s an interesting new article about the custom bar code craze in Japan from Fast Company magazine.
Retrofuture on YouTube
September 26th, 2009Here’s a video I put together of various news clips and other archival space age footage with music by Deodata (Also Sprach Zarathustra) and David Bowie (Starman). Scenes include a GM Futurama in late 1950s, the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair, the Whirlpool Space Kitchen, “1999,” a corporate vision of the future made by Ford-Philco in 1970, a (insert plug here) Space Food Sticks commercial, the Braniff Airlines’ “Air Strip” TV ads, and lots more.
Futurama II
July 2nd, 2009Here’s a video of the second GM Futurama from 1965/65 World’s Fair in Flushing, New York. There’s some truly frightening visions of the future here, none more so than a rainforest-steamrolling machine that instantly paves roads with laser beams. This “journey into the future” is one we luckily never made.
The Original Futurama of 1939
July 2nd, 2009This is an original Retrofuture article from 1999. What GM wouldn’t give for some good publicity today.
These days the name “Futurama” is associated with a cartoon series created by Matt (“The Simpsons”) Groening. Few realize its name is borrowed from a wildly-popular ride at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
That Futurama–the original Futurama–was an unforgettable trip into the brave new world of 1960. Yes, fabulous 1960…who can forget the thrill of exiting off a highway at 50 miles per hour?
Back in 1939, hundreds of thousands were mesmerized by Futurama’s elaborate vision. What drew them in? Gleaming skyscrapers, massive superhighways and promises of greater mobility.
Spectators were exhilarated by the imaginary presentation staged by General Motors. Gliding along in comfortable easy chairs wired for sound, they looked down on the spectacular 35,000 square-foot diorama and learned how giant highway intersections would permit those rapid right and left turns. “Strange? Fantastic? Unbelievable?” asked the narrator, “Remember, this is the world of 1960!”
The calming tones of the narrator were filled with assurance. Doubt was not option in Futurama. “The World of Tomorrow” promised only better days ahead. Futurama followed this script to perfection. Visitors were promised that “abundant sunshine, fresh air, fine green parkways” would blend together seamlessly with dazzling skyscrapers and seven-lane highways. Thanks to the monumental scale of the presentation, even the most-outlandish claim seemed believable.
At the end of the ride, when the awestruck visitors were deposited in a GM showroom and left to contemplate the meaning of it all, they were handed a souvenir button that read: “I have seen the future.” Few disagreed.
I wasn’t there (although, ironically enough, I was born in 1960). My father, who was there, remembers the trip through Futurama as one of the highlights of his childhood.
The real 1960, of course, looked almost nothing like the car-based utopia of Futurama. But that hardly mattered–twenty years later, the ride was already sealed in the public’s imagination. “A modern masterpiece of illusion” writes Joseph P. Corn who authored “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Vision of the American Future,” adding “no futuristic film or exhibit (has) ever been so convincing.”
Futurama was also a spectacularly-effective piece of propaganda for GM. In staging the event, GM hoped fairgoers (read: potential car buyers) would be lured into an idealized fantasy world–not the world of 1939 with its traffic accidents and stop-and-go congestion but a world free of inconvenience and hassles.
“Speed is the cry of our era,” declared the ride’s designer Norman Bel Geddes. And Futurama reflected this belief. Everything about Futurama was streamlined–the curved towers of steel and glass, the futuristic teardrop-shaped automobiles, even the “Highways and Horizons” pavilion that housed the ride.
Bel Geddes’ brilliantly-executed vision struck a popular chord with audiences. With World War II rumbling ominously in the distance, most Americans were willing to suspend disbelief and buy into exhibit’s rosy outlook.
“All eyes to the future,” announced the narrator of Futurama. Colossal highways raced by monumental cityscapes, lush green farmlands rolled through the open countryside. Bel Geddes based his seductive vision on the ideas of architect Le Corbusier and other European modernists from the late 1930s.
Many concepts were amusingly off the mark: floating airports which adjusted in water to shift to the changing wind conditions; highways with curved sides which allowed vehicles to travel at different speeds (four lanes at 50 m.p.h, two lanes at 75 m.p.h, and two lanes at 100 m.p.h.).
In retrospect a few errors in judgment seem so obvious (no mention being made of pollution or the consequences of unchecked progress) but over the years, Futurama’s legend continues to grow. Its reputation, in no small measure, is based on the considerable theatrical flair Bel Geddes brought to the project. Bel Geddes sincerely believed that through cooperative efforts and good planning people could lead better lives.
In 1964, General Motors created an updated Futurama for the follow-up New York World’s Fair. But this time riders were less impressed. They had already seen the future of 1960 and it hadn’t looked anything like the past.
