subject: In Remembrance Of Norman Woodland, The Inventor Of Barcodes [print this page] On December 14th 2012 one of the greatest American inventors, Norman Joseph Woodland, has passed away. He was one of the technologists engaged in barcode design. The work on barcodes started in 1948, when he and his colleagues from Drexel University, Bernard Silver and Jordin Johanson, began to develop a system that could automatically read product information during its inspection. As one could guess, it was hell of a revolution in trade and technology at the time.
The work lasted for several years, during which Norman Woodland moved from Philadelphia to Florida. There he designed the first barcode, which was performed on the beach sand. It is interesting to note that the inspiration was find in Morse alphabet. Next year Woodland and Silver made a patent application the barcode and in 1951 the patent was eventually issued. The fate of this patent is associated with several companies. In 1952 it was sold to Philco Company, and then to RCA. For the first time the device of barcode scanner was used in 1970s; more precisely, it was registered in 1974, when a gum was scanned.
In 1973, UPC - Universal Product Code was created in the United States, which promotes use of bar codes in industry and trade. And in 1977 EAN, European Article Numbering, has been applied in Western Europe; its main purpose was to identify consumer products with a similar system. Precisely, this organization provides bar codes for international companies. Today, it includes 98 organizations from about 100 countries. Manufacturers can obtain a barcode for products registered earlier in this association.
Only about in forty years barcoding technology has stepped so far that today it is possible to read a code with the help of light spot with diameter of a quarter of a millimeter. A barcode allows reading information about products instantly and exactly - no more than one error in 10 million readings.
Inn 2011, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver were taken in the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame. Linear bar code, which is a sequence of black and white stripes or other geometric figures, can be found on millions of products around the world, as well as following inventions of barcode scanners and readers. It speaks of huge significance of the work they did.
