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 On this date in engineering history, a cashier scanned the first universal product code (UPC) at a supermarket checkout counter. Shortly after 8:00 AM on June 26, 1974, shopper Clyde Dawson handed Sharon Buchanan a 10-pack of chewing gum. Buchanan, a cashier at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, scanned the package's black and white barcode with a $4000 laser scanner from PSC, Inc. When the gum rang up at 67 cents, an era in supermarket shopping was born. Today, Clyde Dawson's package of Juicy Fruit gum is on display at the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of American History. Supermarket barcodes are no longer a novelty, and UPC barcode scanners are available for a fraction of their original cost.
From Punch Cards to Bulls Eyes to UPCs
Long before bar codes and laser scanners, a grocer's son named Wallace Flint wrote a Master's degree thesis about a supermarket where customers would punch paper slips to mark their selections, and insert completed cards into a reader which would activate a conveyor belt. Years later, two graduate students at Drexel University patented a bar code system that used ultraviolet ink and concentric circles which resembled bulls' eyes. Although RCA demonstrated a bulls' eye barcode system at a meeting of grocery industry executives in 1971, printing problems and scanning snafus limited the technology's usefulness. In the meantime, engineers at IBM's facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina tested barcodes such as Delta A, Delta B, and Delta C before inventing the universal product code (UPC). Although George Laurer is labeled as the UPC's inventor, engineers Heard Baumeister, Bill Crouse, and Jack Jones, and Paul McEnroe also deserve credit.
From Bar Codes to RFID Tags
Thirty years after Sharon Buchanan scanned the first UPC barcode at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, Wal -Mart announced a pilot program which required suppliers to attach radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to shipments to its stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Today, the world's largest retailer requires 100% RFID compliance from its top 100 suppliers. By the end of 2007, all Wal-Mart suppliers must be compliant with the company's electronic product code (EPC) network. RFID mandates from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and European retailers Metro, Marks & Spencer and Tesco have also popularized RFID tags. Eventually, RFID News reports, RFID tags will replace UPC barcodes on every consumer product.
Resources:
http://www.keyword.com/barcode_upc.htm
http://www.rfidnews.org/library/2004/02/01/new-rfid-tag-standard-poised-to-replace-barcode-on-every-consumer-product/
http://www.barcoding.com/information/barcode_history.shtml
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid19_gci1067450,00.html
http://www.zebra.com/id/zebra/na/en/index/rfid/faqs/compliance_mandates.html
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Re: June 26, 1974 – The First Universal Product Code (UPC)
