WEBVTT - How Barcodes Work 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.560 Hey, everybody, it's your old pel Josh. Sorry to cut in, 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:06.840 but just for a second, I'm wanting to let you 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.600 know that I'm doing my solo live show, The End 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.280 of the World or How I Learned to Start Worrying 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.840 and Love Humanity in Minneapolis and in d C. On June. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.000 I'll be in Minneapolis at the Parkway Theater and you 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.720 can get tickets by going to the Parkway Theater dot com. 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.200 The next night, June, I'll be in Washington, d C, 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.960 our Nation's capital, to bring the good word to our 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.879 nation's capital. I'll be there at the Miracle Theater and 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.080 you can get tickets to that one at the Miracle 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.080 Theater dot com. Thanks a lot for coming to see me. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:45.120 I'll see you this June. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:53.920 a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.480 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.440 Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and this 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:06.039 is Stuff you Should Know. Barcodes. Give me some bar codes. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:11.920 I love them bar codes. Blah. Do you like bar 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:18.440 codes too? Um? Sure, I'm I'm I'm feigning geeking out 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.760 because I think bar codes are cool, But I'm not 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.679 like a barcode nerd. No, But it is interesting that 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.840 like how much of our how much we take them 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.759 for granted, and how they're everywhere, and after you listen 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.200 to this or we research this, you probably start noticing 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.280 them and being like, what secrets lie within you? Exactly 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.440 a little black things and spaces in between. Well, hopefully 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.520 if they listen to this, they won't have any questions 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.479 like that they'll know all the barcode secrets. Well sure, 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:52.560 I hope, Yeah, we'll find out. We'll see. So, like 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.840 you said, bar codes are absolutely everywhere, and it is 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:56.520 one of those things where you like, there's one, Oh 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.680 my gosh, there's one. There's one over there. Like if 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.200 you work at a company, turn your computer over, guarantee 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.640 there's a bar code underneath. There's bar codes all over 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.920 the place, right, there's one on your forehead. There is 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.160 I gotta tattoo this morning just for this episode. Wasn't 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.280 it in a movie? I feel like, um, future world 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.720 where we all have barcodes? Was the government to put 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.400 him on our next Oh? Maybe it was the Apple 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.640 add It was the Apple ad was probably I know 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:26.359 exactly what you're talking about I can see a guy 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.040 with the shaved head in a suit with a bar 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:30.920 code on the back of his neck. All right, well, 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.560 I think there's people yelling at their radio right now, right, 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.600 so they're every radio, they're on your computer, they're on 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.320 guys next, they're on the computer or on the radio. Um, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:46.720 and they're actually not that old of an invention. Let 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.520 me rephrase that, chuck. They are exactly as old as 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.600 you would imagine them to be, right, which is uh, 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.480 if you thought about it. This is one of those 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.920 things where if you ask someone, they probably able by 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.440 stopped talking, if you gave a little bit of thought, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:04.959 you might think of the other half of what makes 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.080 a barcode necessary or able to be used, which is 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.360 the laser. And that was the big reveal. Well, they 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.600 can't have preceded the laser. It kind of did, actually though. 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:19.840 Well yeah, sure the idea, but it took them in 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:25.480 concert to actually do anything worthwhile, right exactly. Um, basically, 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:27.400 we're both just a couple of lumps and put us 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:32.160 together and we took off like the UPC code protocol. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:38.640 So so um back, let's let's let's set the scene, 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.320 shall we. All right, are we way back in it here. Sure, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:54.800 all right, Jerry, Thank you, Jerry. Jerry launched us. So. Um, 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.840 when you think about bar codes, you think grocery store typically, right, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.360 I think anything, Sure, I think grocery store. I think 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:06.200 anything you can anywhere you can buy something or yeah, okay, 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.720 that's much more dead on. But mine makes sense too, 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.040 because it was in the grocery store that the whole 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.960 issue of bar codes, the whole reason we have bar 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.440 codes to begin with, really began because it used to 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:24.920 be a genuine, bona fide mess going to the grocery store. Yeah. 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:26.920 I mean, and this was back when people weren't even 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.279 in a hurry. Um yeah, imagine now, like my mom 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:35.480 was a uh cashier at Kroger in the nineteen sixties. 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:40.320 So she has remarked about how fast she was typing 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.920 in those numbers, and now people like going through her 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.120 line because she was just brew right, she was typing 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.880 in those numbers. Is the key here? Yeah? But no, 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.120 I mean there is no Well we haven't done the 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.880 John Henry test. Maybe maybe Diane was so fast it's 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.800 she could beat the laser, especially these days, because you know, 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.960 sometimes it seems like they can take longer when they 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.240 scan it and scan it and scan it and then 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.880 type in the tiny number. Right, But your mom may 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.880 have been an anomaly. For the most part. If you 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.559 went and checked out in a line at a grocery store, 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.000 you had to wait way longer than you do these days, 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.920 because it wasn't Chuck's mom it was checking you out. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:24.400 It was some other person who to lift up the 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.840 can't find the price label on it, type in the price, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.839 type in the tax, and then pick up the next 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.280 thing and do the same thing. Heaven forbid that sticker 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:41.720 fell off, yes, or they got over price. Check on 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.120 Aisle seven earl and see what the Alpa costs. So 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.200 you've got that problem, right if it goes on sale. 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.320 That's another thing too that you have to go through 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.520 and relabel all those cants. Right, So that's where you 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.520 got the price was. It was labeled by some guy 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.240 with a gun. Remember that movie Oh God would John 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.760 Denver and George Burns. I always whenever I hear of 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.640 a dude like pricing um something in a supermarket with 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.880 a price, That's what I think of it that I 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.159 think the first scene where he meets God, Yeah he 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.120 was a supermarket manager, right, yeah, he was so um. 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.520 That's how the price got on there. That was one 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.120 problem that you had hand labeling prices and then hand 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.599 typing it in. But there's also the key of inventory. 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:28.599 The only way to tell how much stuff you had 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.320 in a store at any given time was to go 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.640 through and count everything in the store and in the 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.760 back room, and then you would know what you needed 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.640 to order. So supermarkets were frequently out of stuff. The 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.600 lines were very long. It was a nightmare unless your 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.960 mom was the cashier, which is one reason why barcodes 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.040 were first invented and adopted into grocery stores, because it 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.720 became so clear so early on that they could solve 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.880 this enormous problem in one fell swoop if they could 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.760 only get a system in place that perfected it. Yeah. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.039 So in the thirties there was a guy who wrote 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.520 a thesis paper at HAVID named Wallace flint Um where 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.520 he invented an automated grocery system with punch cards and 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.840 flow wrecks and such. Didn't really take off, but it 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.559 was an interesting precursor. I think anytime you have punch 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.920 cards involved, it's not gonna take off, right unless that's 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.800 how we vote in this country, um, and you see 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.120 how that worked out. So flash forward Philadelphia in the 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.800 nineteen forties. That was a grocery store manager who was 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.239 like Josh, he was pretty upset and riled up about 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.840 time and how long it's all taking and running out 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.320 of stuff. And he went to Drexel. Uh, I guess 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.440 it's dressed Drexel University Now was a Drexel? I t 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.480 back then? Or was it? Two different? Things? Could be offshoot? 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.120 Maybe there are copycats. All right, we'll like, yeah, we're 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.600 in Drexel too. I looked at their mascot. By the way, 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:00.080 they're the Dragons, specifically their mascot that dresses up for 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:05.280 basketball games as Mario the Magnificent. Huh, it's a little 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.120 odd for a dragon. Yeah, he's he's named after. Apparently 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.440 they're like oldest basketball fan or something. Okay, that makes sense. 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.440 Sure what happens to be a dragon? Anything? Rao dragons. So, 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:20.320 like I said, can you help me Drexel? I need 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.960 help because I'm a grocery store managers taken forever. The 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.560 dean said, no, no, not really. But there was a 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.520 student there, a grad student name Bob Silver, who's stuck 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:33.800 that in his pocket. As they say, walked away and 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:35.760 went to his friend who who was a grad of 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.560 Drexel name Joe Woodland, because I guess he knew Joe 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.400 was the man for ideas like this. And Woodland said, yeah, 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:45.600 I think, uh, I think we could come up with something. 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.560 He said, we're in Philadelphia, let's go down to Miami 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.240 Beach and think about this. Yeah, because years from now 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.120 that's where the I smell will be dreamed up. It 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.920 was Miami Beach too, That's why it seemed familiar, it 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:58.720 wasn't it. Yeah, it seemed familiar to me, and I 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:00.760 was like, wait a minute, Oh that's right. So the 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.200 I smell and the UPC symbol we're both dreamed up 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:08.400 on Miami Beach and to life crew. Um. So yeah, 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.720 Apparently he goes to the beach starts dreaming of like 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.440 Morse code. Basically, what he's trying to figure out is 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.800 what can we use to represent like the price and 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.160 like the stock number. That's really what they were trying 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.760 to boil it down to use. If you have that 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:30.520 in one little component, then then that can be scanned 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:35.199 and exactly, um it could be scanned, it could be 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.760 um typed in. However, you need to do it, but 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:39.839 it could bring up a lot more information and you 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:41.600 could do it a lot faster because it could tell 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.760 you things like there's only two left, you better order, right, 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.240 that kind of thing. So, like you said, he figured 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.160 out Morse code. He was kind of inspired on Miami 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.560 Beach to use Morse code. But then something really weird happened. 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.920 He types some lines and some dots, typed with his fingers, um, 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.640 and the sand in the hand, typed in the sand, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.640 and then he just pulled his fingers downward in the 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.120 sand and turned him into lines. I figured he was 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.720 drunk or something maybe, so I just kind of he 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.120 was slurring his sand line right, And um, that was 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.560 the beginning of the first u PC symbol. And it 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.559 was way different than what you would think because what 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.640 they ended up coming up with was not just lines 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.440 like we see today, but circles concentric concentric circles like 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.760 a bull's eye. Yeah, it looks like uh, it looks 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:35.240 like a record like an LP Yeah. Basically, Um, so 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.720 that was it. Like if this was the movie, And 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.160 after all, they made a movie about Winchell wipers with 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.640 Greg Kenear, So why hasn't this been made I don't know. 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:46.960 That would be the moment where he draws those lines 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.000 in the sand and like a halo glows around them 0:10:50.040 --> 0:11:00.240 and like two live crew starts playing back. Then How 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.080 great would that be? Um? So yeah, that's where it 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.800 was born. Uh, those two dudes, Woolen and Silver, they 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.040 came up with a machine because that was kind of 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.360 the problem. It's like, great, we figured out this barcode thing, 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.600 but it's useless unless you had a reader. And their 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.600 reader was huge and expensive and heavy and dangerous. It 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:21.600 sounds like it was like the size of a desk, 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.600 and back then desks were really big. That's like says 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.360 of a bus today. They also used in a scilloscope 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.240 as the reader, right, which I for life, we can't 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.440 figure out how they did that, um, because that detects 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:37.840 like electrical pulses. But the upshot of it was that 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.120 a scilloscope with a five hundred bulb they got super 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.480 dangerously hot when they put it together with those two kids. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.640 These were grad students at the time or they just 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.760 recently graduated. Um, they put together the first machine that 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.040 could read printed material. That's pretty cool, right. So it 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.800 just so happened that that printed material was a printed 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.760 bulls eye upc code. There's a big problem that they 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:05.080 were missing something very important, and that was uh microcomputer, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.640 something that could read this code and make sense of it. Um. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:11.600 They hadn't quite come up with that, so they said, 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:13.880 you know what, let's just forget about this. We'll put 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.480 it in dad's garage like a trampoline, sell it to 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.520 our c A. Well, yeah, they sold the patent right right, 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.239 and then we're gonna head off to go work for IBM. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.320 And that's where the big scene with the glowing and 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.280 two live crew would have ended, maybe in a montage 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.560 or something. Right. Uh so we I spoiled it, I 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:38.000 guess um with the laser. But in nine was when 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:43.199 the first laser was debuted. And this was really key 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.440 to read this thing because the reason they used a 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.640 five D lightbulb wasn't because they were just like, man, 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.320 this is so cool and hot and dangerous, Like you 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:57.040 needed a tremendous amount of light to read these tiny um, 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.240 I mean super detailed. You know, it's not detail old 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.760 with like lettering that we're used to seeing, but it 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.000 was deep. He had to read the detail right because 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.600 and it also has to be kind of small too. Yeah, 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.400 it can't be at the size of they can right exactly, um, 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.760 or you know, something bigger than the size that they can. 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.000 It has to be fairly small and it is fairly 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.560 detailed and um, so you need a really bright light 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.760 to read it. Well. Luckily, eventually the Hughes Corporation came 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.559 up with the laser and that was very quickly implemented 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.800 with the bar code system, not in grocery stores at first, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.880 but on the railroad. It turns out, yeah, this was um, 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.840 this guy figures pretty prominently. His name is David Collins, 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.080 and he had a company called Computer Identics Corporation. And 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.640 what he came up was the first in nine, the 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.760 first bar code reader that actually worked without you know, 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.439 five lightbulbs, using that laser to keep check of freight 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:57.080 cars because the railroad companies would swap freight cars with 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.080 one another all the time, but you'd end up some 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.400 guy would always keep your freight car and be like, 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:03.720 I don't know, just talk about yeah. So he sold 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.920 two of those in nineteen nine m I T. Grad 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.000 and that that kind of changed the game because all 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.680 of a sudden it was being implemented not in grocery 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:19.920 stores like you said, but grocery store uh people, workers, managers, owners, uh, 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.120 industry leaders. I think they took notice. They did, especially 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.840 again named Alan Hallerman, who basically led the charge to 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.040 get this stuff into supermarkets. And there was a pilot 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.480 program that was at a Kroger like the one your 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.120 mom worked at about the time where she would have 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.560 worked for Kroger. But this is up in Cincinnati, which 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.040 I think is where Kroger was founded. Yeah, she was 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.400 in Tennessee, I think. And our c A had been 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:49.560 looking for new projects to um to to work on, 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.760 and they found this old patent that r c A 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.160 bought from Woodland and so, yeah, what about this old thing? 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.120 Is it a bulls eye? Like? No, check it out. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.040 So they put laser to bull's eye and ran this 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:06.320 pilot program in in Cincinnati at Krogrin it went okay 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.160 ish for a new thing, It did all right, But 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:10.960 we mentioned how they had to be able to read 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:15.840 these intricate little barcodes. Um printing wasn't great, so any 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.760 smudges or smears or anything would just throw the whole 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:20.920 system off, right, But it was enough of a proof 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:25.560 of concept that that the these um grocery store industry 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.080 leaders led by Alan Holderman, said we've got to get 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.720 this out into grocery stores. So they formed we got 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.720 to mention the name of their group. You're ready for it? Okay? 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.280 They formed the US Supermarket ad Hoc Committee on a 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.200 uniform Grocery Product code. What does that spell? U S 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:48.400 A h C, U G p C, it spells nothing 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:53.720 or nothing, it spells a barcode um. I read somewhere 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.680 that this guy, he would when he was lobbying supermarket 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.880 managers and leaders I us to like buy into this. 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.280 He would take them to go see Deep Throat. I 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.120 read that it was the fashion of the day to 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.560 like go out for a steak dinner. And then everybody 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.040 went and watched Deep Throat in the movie theater as 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.720 part of like a business meeting. Do you get the 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.760 steak dinner before or after that? Before parents are really 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:24.080 to oh dear, Well, let's take a break and ruminate 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:55.560 on that question and we'll be right back. Change. So 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.520 the um, the U S Supermarket at Hot Committee on 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.680 a unifor ARM grocery product code hanging out at the 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.679 ad committee in the porno theater. Sure we can call 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:07.280 him the ad HUT Committee from now on, all right, 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.280 that's wanting to get it in one more time. And um, 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.479 they decided that yes, the r c A patent with 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.480 the bulls eye was pretty good, but it hadn't worked 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.640 that good. Is it possible or something better? And this 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.040 is pretty forward thinking, um at the time if you 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.280 think about it too, to say like, yes, this works, 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.160 this company has a patent on it. Forget about that. 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.199 Could we do better? And they actually launched like a 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.080 national basically a competition to come up with something better. Yeah, 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.600 And this was sort of in the face of manufacturers 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:40.840 who weren't too crazy about this idea to begin with, 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.879 because it would be on them obviously, like Campbell's Soup 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.359 to start putting these codes on their soup cans. And 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.440 no one really wanted to do it because of they 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.200 have their own systems in place. It would cost some 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.679 money and time, and they were just like, hey, it 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.600 ain't broke on our end. What's funny is this this article? 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.359 I think this part came from a smith sony An 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.720 article where they're saying, like cardboard manufacturers thought it would 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.920 spoil their product, like it's so beautiful, this box of 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.320 of apple cinnamon oatmeal cannot be spoiled with a with 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.800 a UPC code. Yeah, that's weird, but that was part 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.440 of the pushback apparently, was they thought it would mess 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.920 up the product, right, but they gave then. I guess 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.480 they were I'm sure they were talked into the fact 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.040 that they could move more product with this. In the end, 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:26.919 they were taken to see deep through and they just 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.680 caved like a house of cards. They're like, man, that 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.879 stick was good and so was the cinema. Um. So 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.200 seven people, like you said, submitted seven companies, and um 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.560 if you go and look at these seven submissions, it's 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.960 interesting that some of them, like one was like the 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.000 LP bull's eye. There was another circular one, but it 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:54.000 looked like no, no, it looks like if kid draws 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.040 the sunshine. It was like all the lines were going 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.240 out from the center. There were a few different variations 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:04.320 that sort of look like the modern barcode and in theory. 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:06.600 But then it's it's so funny when you look at 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.280 the seven side by side, you immediately go to that 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.120 little rectangular when you're like, oh, well, yeah, just because 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.359 we're used to it. But I don't know if at first, 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.960 if people just looked at it like the bulls in 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.840 one was pretty, it is. The sunshine one was nice. 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.120 I think I've seen the Sunshine one and like cartons 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.159 of milk or orange juice, like on the bottom of 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.280 paper cartons. I've seen that before, I know. Yeah, so 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.600 I guess somebody adopted. There was a little half circle 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:32.919 one too, that looks sort of like a rainbow sticker. 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:38.560 It's very cute. That is cute. But the kicker here 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:43.879 is is that IBM um sort of at hour, I 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:45.880 guess heard about this. We're like, hey, yeah, we'll throw 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.080 in a bid. They're like, oh, well, what have you developed? 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.159 And they're like, we haven't developed anything because we just 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.800 heard about this. But Grapevine, Joe Woodland, the guy who 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.800 invented this other one works for us. Sure, ironically, Joe 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:00.680 Woodland didn't have anything to do with their design though. 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.000 Who was it George Laura? The story is all over 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.879 the place. It really is interesting how many different like 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.840 directions it took, how many times they saw a deep 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.880 throat over and over again as this process was going on. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.800 Just stop saying those words, just say cinema. But there 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.960 was a guy there named George Laura at IBM and Uh. 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.399 The advantage he had, or at least says he saw it, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.680 and I agree, is that he hadn't seen all these 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.560 bulls eyes and sunshines and rainbows, and he was he 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.639 kind of started from scratch and built that beautiful little rectangle. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.399 That was his premise that he was like, I'm unadulterated 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.639 with any any conceptions IBM, didn't have any pre existing 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.320 machinery that this thing needed to fit into nothing. He 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.320 got to start from scratch. And actually his idea panned 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:55.960 out because his was selected the ad hoc committee I'll 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.400 spare everybody UM met in New York, and they actually 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.360 tapped some scientists from m I T because they said, 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.159 who are the smartest scientists around? M I T scientists? 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:10.800 Here are the how many was it seven or eleven designs? Seven? Okay, 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.720 here are the seven designs and my T scientists, you, guys, 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.120 tell us which one you think is right. But then 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.359 this Alan Haberman, he said, hold on before you, guys, 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:23.119 tell us, can you give me a confidence interval of 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.760 how how confident you are that you have picked the 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.840 right one? And all of them were at like confident 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:38.480 and it was lours rectangle that one that's right. Uh. Interestingly, 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:44.040 they had demonstrated the rectangular one with a bean bag 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.199 ashtray and the a softball picture, Yeah, which is picture, Like, 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.240 is there anything better than the bean bag ashtray? Those 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.560 are great? Yeah? We got those in college. Like I 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:58.040 searched them out just because they you know, because they 0:21:58.040 --> 0:21:59.720 were always plaid and looked like they were from the 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.320 fifth You never smoked, did you. Well, I mean I 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.040 spoke to a little in college, but we we had 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.359 ashtrays around. He still wanted to provide for your guests. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.000 See this is in college, you know. Yeah, that's trays. 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.160 Maybe a little snack caddy to go with the cocktails. 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:15.160 But we had a few of those bean bag ashtrays, 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.520 and uh they were pretty great, and mostly because you 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:19.560 could put them on a dashboard of a car and 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.040 they would stay there right or on your belly. Well 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.600 you're popin sure, Sure they'd stay wherever you want them to. So, 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:29.879 like you said, Laura, one the big they had a 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:34.679 big party I'm sure with rectangular um or derve's all 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.280 arranged in perfect lines, eating out of bean bag ashtrays. 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:43.880 Oh god. Uh. And then on June nine, they debuted 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:48.240 it in a real store, um in Troy, Ohio, Marsh 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.200 Marsh Supermarket. Yeah, I've not heard of it. I still 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.399 I thought you might have been like, oh, yeah, the 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.480 old days of the Marshes and Toledo. No, we had 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:03.200 I g a food Town Kroger, that's it. Yeah, that's 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:10.800 all I can remember. And foods with a Z foods. Uh. 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:12.600 I don't know why that. That's the first thing I 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:16.120 can think of. Um, So they had this the whole 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.399 checkout counter I see is translated into day's dollars. But 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.960