The barcode changed the face of inventory control and retailIt goes without saying that almost every facet of our lives involves the use of a bar code in some way for the purpose of identification and tracking control. From the goods and services we buy in a store, electronic records, mail, membership cards, and even the driver's license, the barcode has proliferated the global landscape. Since its commercial debut 34 years ago, the bar code has earned its place as an essential tool for business and communication as much as the personal computer and the telephone are.
Besides such things as shopping and personal identification, most people seem to be aware that bar codes have other handy and essential uses as well. Rental car companies keep track of their fleet by means of bar codes on the car bumper. Airlines track passenger luggage, reducing the chance of loss (believe it or not). Researchers have placed tiny bar codes on individual bees to track the insects' mating habits. NASA relies on bar codes to monitor the thousands of heat tiles that need to be replaced after every space shuttle trip, and the movement of nuclear waste is tracked with a bar-code inventory system. Bar codes even appear on humans and animals!
So with those facts in place, it's time for a celebration! On this day in 1974 at 8:01 in the morning, a barcode reader made by the National Cash Register Company is used for the first time at a supermarket checkout. A 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum is passed through a scanning machine in Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The pack of gum wasn't specially designated to be the first scanned product. It just happened to be the first item lifted from the cart by a shopper whose name is long since lost to history. Today, the pack of gum is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
Be advised that barcode technology wasn't a new idea in the 1970s when that pack of Wrigley's chewing gum went through the scanner at Marsh Supermarket. In 1932, some students at Harvard University came up with a system that utilized punch cards as a way to track and manage the sale of merchandise. This ambitious project was the beginning that paved the way for advances that we now know as UPC in bar code history. To read more about the first commercial scan of Wrigley's gum, click here.
