
George Laurer, co-inventor of the barcode, dies at 94 - happy-go-lucky
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50726950
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symplee
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code)

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

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

~~~
elliekelly
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.

~~~
Cthulhu_
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.

~~~
RealityVoid
> 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.

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

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

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todd8
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.

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onetimemanytime
Q: So what did you do.

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

What a legacy!

