The Inventors of the Barcode

The barcode may be everywhere today, but it is a relatively recent invention. Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland started working on the idea in the late 1940s. Silver was likely unaware that another inventor had developed a system using punch cards back in the 1930s.

Silver had a fairly clear idea of what needed to be done and he was obsessed enough to use his own money to find a system that worked. Initial attempts used ultraviolet ink but the ink faded too quickly and the process was too expensive. He later claimed that Morse code gave him the inspiration that led to his first successful barcode design. He took the Morse code dots and dashes and put them in rows.

Of course having a system to read these codes was another matter. For this Silver adapted technology used for reading the sound scores on movie film. Silver and Woodland received their first patent for the new technology in 1952. Silver started working for IBM in 1951, who was, ironically, deeply involved in punch-card technology. Silver tried to interest the corporate giant in his project, and IBM actually commissioned a report which indicated the idea was feasible, but involved technology that was simply unavailable at the time.

Early barcode scanner prototypes indicated that the technology could work. The prototype reader system was also too large to be practical and they had no easy way to make it smaller. While IBM offered to purchase the patent for far less than it was worth, Silver and Woodland persevered. In 1962, Philco bought the patents. Before the project with Philco could go very far Bernard Silver was killed in a car crash.

Meanwhile it was becoming clear that barcode scanning technology could be used by grocery stores who were trying to maintain the right amount of inventory, and railroads struggling to keep track of their many cars. The railroad industry, still very strong in those days, adopted a system similar to the barcode

This alternative system was developed by David Collins and promoted by Sylvania. Collins tried to interest Sylvania in a smaller version of the system which could be used on anything, but Sylvania turned him down. As a result Collins left his arrangement with Sylvania and created his own company called Computer Identics Corporation. Meanwhile Philco sold the barcode patent rights to RCA.

Development began in earnest in the late 1960s, as the grocery industry now demanded such technology. Manufacturing companies also needed this type of technology.

Collins’ Computer Identics quietly installed rudimentary, hand-built barcode and scanning systems in a General Motors (GM) plant in Michigan, and the General Trading Company in New Jersey. Meanwhile at RCA they were working on a laser-guided barcode system which was first installed at Kroger for testing. By the 1970s IBM became involved in barcode technology development again and put Norman Woodland in charge of their project. Barcode technology’s future had finally arrived.

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