Who invented the bar code? How are bar codes read?
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
