Code 3
The Universal Product Code (UPC) is one of a wide variety of bar code languages called symbologies. The UPC was the original barcode widely used in the United States and Canada for items in stores. more...
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History
Wallace Flint proposed an automated checkout system in 1932 using punch cards. Joseph Woodland patented a bull's-eye style code in 1952 and the first commercial use of barcodes was in 1966.
In 1970 Logicon Inc. created the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code (UGPIC). In 1970 it was used by Monarch Marking in the United States and Plessey Telecommunications in the United Kingdom.
A group of grocery industry trade associations formed the Uniform Grocery Product Code Council which with consulting firm McKinsey & Company defined the predecessor to the Uniform Product Code. In 1973 George J. Laurer developed the Universal Product Code.
The first item to be placed under a UPC scanner in a retail store was a 10-pack of Wrigley's Chewing Gum at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974.
Current code
The UPC encodes twelve decimal digits as SLLLLLLMRRRRRRE, where S (start) and E (end) are the bit pattern 101, M (middle) is the bit pattern 01010 (called guard bars), and each L (left) and R (right) are digits, each one represented by a seven-bit code. This is a total of 95 bits. The bit pattern for each numeral is designed to be as little like the others as possible, and to have no more than four 1s or 0s in order. Both are for reliability in scanning.
The UPC is only numerals, with no letters or other characters. The first L digit is the U.P.C. Prefix. The last digit R is a check digit, so that errors in scanning or manual entry can be detected.
U.P.C. Prefixes
0, 1, 6, 7, 8, or 9 for most products;
2 reserved for local use (store/warehouse), for items sold by variable weight. Variable-weight items, such as meats and fresh fruits and vegetables, are assigned a UPC by the store if they are packaged there. In this case, the LLLLL is the item number, and the _RRRR is either the weight or the price, with the first R determining which.;
3 drugs by National Drug Code number. Pharmaceuticals in the U.S. have the remainder of the UPC as their National Drug Code (NDC) number; though usually only over-the-counter drugs are scanned at point-of-sale, NDC-based UPCs are used on prescription drug packages as well for inventory purposes.;
4 reserved for local use (store/warehouse), often for loyalty cards;
5 coupons, though many stores ignore this and use others. Likewise, coupons are supposed to have the coupon code in LLLLL, the amount to be taken off in _RRRR, and whether that amount is a percent or a literal amount encoded in the first R.;
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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