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For our first stop on the road to bar-code wisdom, we scanned Warren Hagey's Bar Code Homepage. In the history section, we learned that bar codes were originally invented to help grocery stores keep track of inventory and facilitate the checkout process. A man named Wallace Flint suggested an automatic retail system way back in 1932, but it wasn't until many years later that the technology made it feasible. Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver worked on and patented another identification system, but the man credited with inventing the widely used UPC (Universal
Product Code) system in 1973 is George J. Laurer. You can check out the basics of bar codes at a great site called More Than You Think, which examines the way computer science affects everyday life. This colorful resource was sponsored by the UK government, and covers all sorts of stuff: digital music, sports replay technology, bus schedules, etc. Bar codes are simple, effective ways to identify products. A bar code is comprised of 12 digits: the first two indicate the country of origin, the next four denote the manufacturer, and the final six are a manufacturer-specific product code. As for the
bars, each number is represented by two black and two white stripes. These stripes have defined widths of 1 to 4 units, and the total width for each digit is always 7 units. After you've built your own bar code, we also suggest you visit How Stuff Works for some more details on the technology. There you can learn how a scanner converts the bars into numbers, which are then routed to a central database.
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