Category: Education/Science >> Science and Technology >> Engineering Technology
Problem Description:
How was the barcode invented? Who invented it? How many types of barcodes are there? What are the uses of barcodes on various products?
Analysis:
A brief history of the development of barcode technology. Barcode first appeared in the 1940s, but it was only around the 1970s that it was actually used and developed. Barcode technology is now commonly used in various countries and regions in the world, and it is rapidly being promoted around the world. Its application fields are becoming more and more extensive, and it has gradually penetrated into many technical fields. As early as the 1940s, two American engineers, Joe Wood Land and Berny Silver, began to study the use of codes to represent food items and corresponding automatic identification equipment. In 1949, they obtained U.S. patent.
The pattern resembles a miniature archery target and is called the "bull's eye" code. The concentric circles of the target type are made of round bars and spaces drawn into a circular shape. In principle, the "Bulls Eye" code is very similar to later bar codes. Unfortunately, the technology and commodity economy at that time were not yet capable of printing such codes. However, 20 years later, Joe Woodland, as an engineer at IBM, became the founder of the North American Uniform Code UPC code. Several inventors, represented by Girard Fessel, filed a patent in 1959, describing that each number from 0 to 9 could be composed of seven parallel strips. However, this code is difficult for machines to read and inconvenient for humans to read. However, this idea did promote the emergence and development of barcodes. Soon, E.F. Brinker applied for another patent, this one for placing bar codes on streetcars. A system invented in Sylvania in the late 1960s was adopted by the North American railway system. These two items can be said to be the earliest applications of barcode technology.
In 1970, the U.S. Supermarket Ad Hoc Committee formulated the Universal Product Code (UPC), and many groups also proposed various barcode symbol schemes, as shown in the lower right and left pictures above. UPC codes were first trialled in the grocery retail industry, which laid the foundation for the future uniformity and widespread adoption of barcodes. The following year, Blaisi Company developed the Blaisi code and the corresponding automatic identification system for inventory verification. This is the first practical application of barcode technology in a warehouse management system. In 1972, Monarch Marking and others developed the Code bar code, and American barcode technology entered a new stage of development.
In 1973, the United States Uniform Coding Consortium (UCC) established the UPC barcode system and standardized the code system. In the same year, the grocery industry adopted UPC codes as the industry's universal standard coding system, which played a positive role in promoting the widespread application of barcode technology in the field of commercial circulation and sales.
In 1974, Dr. Davide Allair of Intermec developed Code 39, which was quickly adopted by the U.S. Department of Defense as a military barcode system. Code 39 was the first alphanumeric barcode and was later widely used in industrial fields.
In 1976, the successful application of UPC codes in supermarkets in the United States and Canada inspired people, especially Europeans, who became very interested in it. The following year, the European Union developed the European Article Numbering EAN-13 and EAN-8 codes based on the UPC-A code, signed a memorandum of agreement on the "European Article Numbering", and formally established the European Article Numbering Association (EAN for short). ). By 1981, as EAN had developed into an international organization, it was renamed "International Article Numbering Association", referred to as IAN. However, due to historical reasons and habits, it is still called EAN. Japan began to establish a POS system in 1974, researching standardization, information input methods, printing technology, etc. Based on EAN, the Japanese article code JAN was formulated in 1978.
In the same year, it joined the International Article Numbering Association, started manufacturer registration, and fully transferred to the development of bar code technology and its series of products. Ten years later, it became the largest user of EAN.
Since the early 1980s, many studies have been conducted on improving the information density of barcode symbols. 128 codes and 93 codes are among the research results. Code 128 was recommended in 1981 and Code 93 was used in 1982. The advantage of these two codes is that the barcode symbol density is nearly 30% higher than that of Code 39. With the development of barcode technology, the types of barcode systems are increasing, so the issue of standardization becomes very prominent. For this purpose, military standard 1189 has been formulated; cross 25 code, 39 code and Qudba code ANSI standard MH10.8M, etc. At the same time, some industries have also begun to establish industry standards to adapt to development needs. Since then, David Allier has developed Code 49, an unconventional bar code symbol that has a higher density than previous bar code symbols. Then Ted Williams introduced the 16K code, a code system suitable for laser systems. So far, there are more than 40 barcode systems in the world, and the corresponding automatic identification equipment and printing technology have also made great progress. Since the mid-1980s, some colleges and universities, scientific research departments and some export enterprises in my country have gradually put the research, promotion and application of bar code technology on their agenda. Some industries such as books, post and telecommunications, material management departments and foreign trade departments have begun to use barcode technology.
With the advent of the information society of economic globalization, information networking, internationalization of life, and nationalization of culture, the concept of social media originated in the 1940s, studied in the 1960s, applied in the 1970s, and became popular in the 1980s Barcodes, barcode technology, and various application systems have caused major changes in the world's circulation field and are sweeping the world. Barcode as a printable computer language, futurists call it "computer culture". In the international circulation field in the 1990s, barcodes were hailed as the "ID cards" for goods to enter the international computer market, making the world look at it with admiration. The barcodes printed on the outer packaging of goods are like economic information links that organically connect manufacturers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers and customers around the world. Once these links are connected to the EDI system, they form a multiple and diverse information network. Information related to various commodities is like an invisible, never-ending automatic guidance transmission mechanism, flowing to all parts of the world and active in the world. Commodity circulation field.