George Laurer, co-inventor of the barcode, dies at 94 | Hacker News Reader

George Laurer, co-inventor of the barcode, dies at 94

bbc.com

122 pointshappy-go-lucky18 comments

Looks like he actually invented the UPC (Universal Product Code) [0] (1973) vs. the barcode [1] (1951).

Wikipedia [1]: "The barcode was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver and patented in the US in 1951. The invention was based on Morse code that was extended to thin and thick bars. However, it took over twenty years before this invention became commercially successful."

>> "The idea was pioneered by a fellow IBM employee, but it was not until Laurer developed a scanner that could read codes digitally that it took off."

"The very first scanning of the now-ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode was on a pack of Wrigley Company chewing gum in June 1974"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode

Funny how anything widely adopted before I was born seems timeless and yet so much of it is quite new.

As Douglas Adams said -

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

I wouldn't say most people are like that. I know people who went from being born during 1920's and are using smartphones (and taking them for granted) just like my nearly 60 years younger parents do. My grandmother went from being raised on a communal farm during real socialism to being a proficient Excel user making complex macros for tax accounting.

Given the author, I think rules like these are better taken as a joke with a nugget of truth in it.

At Thanksgiving my ~60 year old parents were telling us that they didn’t have a microwave growing up and it blew my mind. Wikipedia says only 25% of households had a microwave in 1986 and my whole life I just assumed they’d been a staple kitchen appliance since the 1960s.

Then we had fun looking up a bunch of old TV show kitchens to see if they had a microwave. The earliest we found was Season 2 of Boy Meets World (1993) though there was a lively debate about whether the early seasons of Married with Children had a microwave or a toaster oven. Better than debating politics at least.

And that's already a somewhat advanced and not really required luxury; my parents mentioned how they still had an outhouse instead of a toilet indoors, and a friend of mine lived in a rental house, not even THAT old, that didn't have central heating (just a big gas heater in the living room, they made do with electric heaters in the bedrooms).

And of course my dad (in his 60's) still remembers the time when there was no sewer and some people still had barrels of sewage that were picked up once a week.

> And that's already a somewhat advanced and not really required luxury; my parents mentioned how they still had an outhouse instead of a toilet indoors

This is still the norm in some (many) places. In my home country about 27% of the population only has an outhouse. Mainly in the rural areas.

I'm 42 and I think a lot of people here would find it surprising that my life just 20-25 years ago was radically different than it is today. To give an example -- then, the only way to contact me when I was not at home was to leave a message with anyone who answered the phone at home. If nobody was home, tough luck, try back sometime you think someone would be home (ie: no answering machine, no cell phone). Email ...meh once a week when I'd go to the cyber cafe to browse the net, chat with strangers online ..etc.

...and if that is surprising, the more surprising thing is a lot of people still live this way in large parts of the world.

There's always a long lead time between technology becoming available and becoming ubiquitous the world over.

> Wikipedia says only 25% of households had a microwave in 1986 and my whole life I just assumed they’d been a staple kitchen appliance since the 1960s.

In That 70s Show, there is an episode in which the Foremans get a microwave.

I'm 30, and I didn't grow up with a microwave. My parents got one about 10 years ago, I think, and they don't use a kettle. I think it's the same for many people where I grew up. Not a poor country, but different cooking habits :)

I was born in '85 and grew up without a microwave. My parents still don't have one. I only got one a couple of years ago, still seems pretty new and I don't fully trust/know a lot of the functions!

I started using a microwave in 2005.

If anyone deserves the black stripe on HN, it’s this guy.

Or Patrick Collison (Stripe) but he probably won't be dying for a good while yet.

UPC or Code128?

So in the 80s I worked at IBM, and they had an interesting policy. If you made an official suggestion that they adopted and saved money for IBM you received some percentage of the first years savings (5% if I recall).

People could make $2000 for just a small improvement of the packing box for a product. When bar codes were first invented, a fellow engineer suggested that IBM employ them for inventory purposes, which of course they did, eventually. Unfortunately for him it was just past the expiration date for the suggestion award. It would have been quite a windfall.

Q: So what did you do.

A: Eh, invented the barcode /UPC used by everyone in the world.

What a legacy!

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