50 THE BARCODE TURNS

If you are under 60 years of age then you probably will not understand what a breakthrough the barcode was for grocery shoppers. Imaging this, standing with your full shopping trolley behind someone else with a full shopping trolley, who is behind the person being served who has a full trolley, the shop attending having to manually type in every price on the register, $6.45, $3.25, $0.89 etc, item after item, shopping took an eternity. Then the magic, just scan, hear the beep and its done, you can go as fast as you can scan, beep, beep, beep, oh how I love that sound.

In terms of inventions that serve the entire society I think the barcode has been greatly underestimated in its impact on our daily lives, the hours of time saved, giving back hours that can be spent on productivity. Also, the hours of stock take time as barcodes electronically count product sales so at the click of a button retailers know what is selling. I could go on and on about the time and cost savings this little beeper has created.