FINAL WARNING: The Curtain Falls
said that the chip does not contain any information, it is not known
what the information storage capacity is. It appears that this may be
just a prototype system, in that a chip costs $150, there is a $50 annual
maintenance fee, and the scanning equipment and software cost
$1,200.The Universal Product Code SystemI am sure you have seen the horizontal scanners at the grocery stores
which are used to read the UPC symbols off of the items you are
buying, so that the computer will automatically print the price of that
item. They obviously have the capability of scanning your hand. For a
time, a few years ago, I began to see upright scanners. With a flat
scanner, the cashier only had to slide the item across the scanning
plate; but with the upright scanner, the cashier has to lift the item up in
front of the scanner. I was amazed the first time I seen one, because
right away I knew that its purpose wasn’t to make things easier for the
cashier, it was to make it easier to scan your forehead and hand.
Recent versions have placed them lower on the checkout station. I
haven’t seen a lot of them, so I don’t know if the retail industry as a
whole is going to upgrade to this version of the scanner.We have been talking about future developments, so let’s talk about
the present. Do you realize that with the Universal Product Code (UPC),
we are already buying and selling under the number 666.In 1970, the National Association of Food Chains, and five other major
trade associations representing manufacturers, wholesalers, and
retailers, met, and formed an ad hoc committee to set up guidelines for
an encoding system that could be accepted by the entire industry. In
1971, a code management committee came up with the concept of a
ten-digit numerical code: the first five to identify the manufacturer, and
the last five to identify the specific item. In 1972, the Uniform Grocery
Product Code Council, Inc. and Distribution Codes, Inc. (in charge of
assigning numbers) was established, with thousands of companies
invited to become members. On April 3, 1973, the ad hoc committee
announced that they had selected a twelve-digit bar code that could be
printed by conventional methods, and be scanned omni-directionally
by an automated system. By the end of 1974, the Uniform Grocery