IUID Blog

Fads come and go. Those that have “staying power” become trends that inevitably provide benefit to organizations or society as a whole. Bar code, now 50 years old and counting, is well beyond a fad. The benefit of bar code has often been to enable “visibility” of items or people. These important things are tracked and accounted for, automatically. (Read More)

Yesterday at A2B headquarters we celebrated the 50th bar code anniversary with Rhode Island Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and RI Congressman Cicilline and Governor Chafee. The Congressman presented our very own A2B Tracking Chairman, David Collins, with a congressional citation congratulating him for being the “father of the bar code industry.” For more information on the history of the bar code, visit The Changes Bar Code has brought to Worldwide Commerce blog post.  (Read More)

Imagine the world before bar code. A2B will soon host an Open House to celebrate the 50th anniversary of bar code scanning. That milestone makes me reflect on the changes that bar code has brought. In 1961, when the first test scan occurred on a Boston & Maine railcar, computers were being used to perform rudimentary accounting and operational functions in both industry and the military. Punch cards were used to communicate between those computers and their users – a slow and expensive process. Data was key-entered, which made it highly prone to error.  (Read More)