Here’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.
Given the popularity of the recently released Star Trek film and how it’s given a new lease of life to Gene Roddenberry’s franchise, it may signal a revival of optimistic visions of the future is finally upon us. It’s about time.
The race to the Moon was accelerating in 1966. Feats in space fed a public anxious for change and hungry for fantasy. The sensory overload of the newly-emerging Information Age created a syndrome that Alvin Toffler later dubbed “Future Shock.”
Forty years later the shock and awe of 1966 might seem quaint. That’s the way it ought to be. If we’re going to progress beyond the drawing board of those creaky space age dreams (as depicted so amusingly on the cover of this week’s New Yorker) it will take more successful re-imaginings of the future along the lines of Star Trek. 
Whatever happened to Homo Aquaticus—the new breed of “humanfish” that were willing to surgically alter their bodies with artificial gills to allow them to breathe under water?
Cousteau was determined to prove humans could live and work underwater. In the early 1960s, he began a series of projects called Conshelf (or Continental Shelf Station). The submerged living quarters allowed aquanauts to stay undersea for up to a month.
Award for World Without Sun, the documentary that looked at the undersea experiment.
While he was underwater in Sealab, Carpenter spoke to NASA colleagues C. Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad, Jr. orbiting Earth in outer space aboard Gemini 5.
And a few stalwarts continue to believe that living underwater is the only sane solution to solving the problem of overpopulation, But most, like Cousteau, are simply attracted to the mysteries of the deep.
Snoopy fans take note: the celebrated flying ace isn’t going to retire his aviator’s wings when Charles Schulz ends the daily Peanuts comic strip this week. The unofficial mascot of NASA for over three decades will continue his association.
NASA’s gambit was a hit with workers. “Snoopy Given Credit for Apollo Success” read a headline the Oklahoma City Times in 1969.
Commander of the mission Thomas P. Stafford, explained why Snoopy was being honored. “We’re going to the moon to find out all these facts and kind of snoop around,” Stafford jested, “(That’s why) the lunar module’s going to be called Snoopy.”
Several months after Apollo 10, when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon, Snoopy appeared in Schulz’s daily Peanut strip declaring “I did it! I’m the first beagle on the moon!”
Officials at the space agency maintain there is no plan to discontinue “The Silver Snoopy”—presented to employees who have made extraordinary contributions to space travel.
