History of the Barcode Scanner

History of the Barcode Scanner thumbnail
History of the Barcode Scanner

Bar code scanners are a modern technology commonly found in stores. They are used to collect the data of an individual product to ease the handling of inventory, price information and reordering.

  1. Inventor

    • Norman Woodland, a teacher at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, invented the first bar code in 1948. By 1952, he had developed a bar code reader and had received patents for both inventions.

    Location

    • The prototype of the bar code scanner was created in Woodland's Philadelphia home. By that time, he was working for IBM and asked his bosses to further develop the technology.

    Function

    • The bar code is a series of lines and numbers that is read by a laser. The laser passes back and forth over the code rapidly. It reads and processes the information that is represented by the numbers in the code.

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References

  • Photo Credit bar code/ id of a product image by L. Shat from Fotolia.com

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