IBM Engineer Who Designed The Universal Bar Code Dies At 94
The code is now a packaging mainstay, but it probably wouldn't have worked without George Laurer.
On a June morning in 1974, a Marsh Supermarket cashier in Troy, Ohio, rang up a 67-cent pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum using something novel â the black and white stripes of a universal bar code.
The Universal Product Code is now a packaging mainstay on everything from cereal boxes and produce to electronics and airplane tickets, but it might not have worked without IBM engineer George Laurer.
Laurer, who at 94 in North Carolina, had been given an assignment by his manager: Write
