# Life before barcodes **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 19, 2017, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130 "2017-11-19T22:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/61 "2017-11-24T22:00:38Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I absolutely remember that cover! šŸ˜ƒ > > [Mad Magazine Cover 1978 - Imgur](http://i.imgur.com/iOwh2nW.jpg) Thanks for the link! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/62 "2017-11-24T23:08:19Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Yeah. Iā€™m confused by pulyā€™s comment too. It is extremely intuitive that thereā€™s a scale there, otherwise how are you expected to buy bulk products and a lot of produce? Maybe by taking it to the cashier who supervises the self-checkouts and is standing there looking at you? But probably my mental deficiencies are due to spending too much time working in academia and not enough in grocery stores, leading to the kind of silo thinking that makes one oblivious to major developments in other disciplines, like the landmark paper, ā€œRecent advances in the application of heuristically augmented Markov models to the automated self-checkout of bulk pistachiosā€. šŸ˜‰ ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/63 "2017-11-26T20:36:02Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I often tell the clerk as theyā€™re searching for that tag that soon the fruit will be engineered so the barcodes grow right in the flesh like a tattoo. Sometimes they believe me. šŸ˜ƒ [Theyā€™re getting closer to that](https://www.automationworld.com/fruit-tattoos-next-step-produce-labeling) šŸ˜ƒ The first I ever heard of bar codes was when MAD magazine ā€œprotestedā€ the new requirement to put the UPC on their front cover by printing a gigantic version of a UPC on the cover, along with the line, ā€œWe hope this jams every computer in the country!ā€ (or words to that effect). Late 1970s, early '80s? As a kid in the 1970s, I remember going grocery shopping with my mom. We bought most of our groceries at a store called Prairie Market. This was a chain of ā€œno frillsā€ grocery stores, with buildings that were basic, gray concrete blocks with no windows. They didnā€™t put price tags on things. Instead, they provided you with a black grease pencil when you entered. Youā€™d pick your stuff off the shelf, look at the price on the shelf, and then write it on the package yourself. They had big, old, clunky cash registers. By the mid-1980s, of course, everything had a bar code, but most stores still didnā€™t have scanners. I briefly worked at Safeway in 1985, and I donā€™t think the local store had switched to scanners yet. In 1989 I was a cashier at a PayLess drug store, and there were no scanners there. ETA: I lived in a menā€™s homeless shelter from 1996 to 2004, and worked in the kitchen. We depended a lot on food donations. Every once in a while, some local senior citizen would pass away, and their family would clean out their cupboards and bring it all to us. It wasnā€™t unusual to find, while sorting through the stuff, canned foods that had been in that cupboard for so long that there was no UPC on the label. Weā€™d be like, ā€œWhoa, lady bought this 30 years ago and never opened the can!ā€ ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/64 "2017-11-26T20:40:26Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > The first I ever heard of bar codes was when MAD magazine ā€œprotestedā€ the new requirement to put the UPC on their front cover by printing a gigantic version of a UPC on the cover, along with the line, ā€œWe hope this jams every computer in the country!ā€ (or words to that effect). Late 1970s, early '80s? Look just a little bit [upthread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20621743#post20621743). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/65 "2017-11-26T21:00:53Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > [Theyā€™re getting closer to that](https://www.automationworld.com/fruit-tattoos-next-step-produce-labeling) šŸ˜ƒ > ā€¦ > Weā€™d be like, ā€œWhoa, lady bought this 30 years ago and never opened the can!ā€ Thanks for the cite. Iā€™d known they were working on ā€œtattooingā€ produce but hadnā€™t seen pictures of the result. My joke to the clerks was that the fruit would be genetically engineered to grow the barcode as part of its natural coloration. Imagine a breed of zebra that scans as UPC 12345-678901. šŸ™‚ At the shelter, when you did receive obviously ancient cans, what did you do? Pitch them as a policy, or examine them closely for damage and serve them if intact, or what? By the time my Mom died she had started to accumulate canned and packaged food far in excess of what made sense for a single woman. This was well beyond just some forgotten Spaghetti-os at the back of the pantry. Her life was otherwise normal with no hording of anything else, no obvious money worries, etc. It was pretty mysterious to us. By that era, pretty much all canned and packaged food came with a printed ā€œbest byā€ date. I culled all the stuff more than a couple years beyond the printed date and brought the rest to a local food pantry / homeless shelter. 1000 pounds worth. :eek: They weighed it on an industrial scale to give me a donation receipt. I always wondered whether they pitched half of that donation as overdue or would have gladly taken and used the other ~500 lbs I threw out as too far beyond overdue. Any insight? For myself I will use stuff well past that date, but not stupid-far past that date. Hence my 2 year pad on Momā€™s stuff. ---
**Author:** ![eastcheap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@eastcheap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eastcheap)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/66 "2017-11-26T22:31:48Z")
> [@Rhiannon8404](#): > > ā€¦my friendā€™s mom was deeply suspicious that the scanners were going to rip her off and charge more than the tag price. To give her her due, she wasnā€™t _wrong._ Iā€™ve taken to photographing tags for unadvertised sales (and all sale tags at a store I wonā€™t name, but it rhymes with ā€œtaller mineralā€). ---
**Author:** ![4d3fect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/4d3fect/32/9728_2.png) [@4d3fect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/4d3fect)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/67 "2017-11-26T22:51:33Z")
I remember my Mom reading out sale items to my Dad as he was getting dressed for work as a grocery clerk in the '60s. Heā€™d have all the flyer prices memorized by the time he got in the car. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/68 "2017-11-27T18:03:46Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Thanks for the cite. Iā€™d known they were working on ā€œtattooingā€ produce but hadnā€™t seen pictures of the result. > > My joke to the clerks was that the fruit would be genetically engineered to grow the barcode as part of its natural coloration. Imagine a breed of zebra that scans as UPC 12345-678901. šŸ™‚ I, and every other professional cook I know, long for the day when the ā€œtattooedā€ codes completely replace the stickers. Itā€™s a major annoyance and time-waster when youā€™re prepping a large quantity of bell peppers or apples and you have to individually peel that little sticker off of every single piece of produce. > [@](#): > > At the shelter, when you did receive obviously ancient cans, what did you do? Pitch them as a policy, or examine them closely for damage and serve them if intact, or what? We just pitched them. First, there was no reason to take chances, and second, a single 10oz can of something wasnā€™t going to make much difference when cooking for 50+ people. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/69 "2017-11-27T21:07:45Z")
I worked at a department storeā€™s clothing section while at high school and Uni. We used swing tags that you applied with a cool gun that a very sharp point to penetrate the fabric and poke the plastic thingy that holds the stiff paper tag in place. Iā€™m sure they still have them. But the printed tag had the price to customer in ordinary Arabic numerals and the cost price to the store in a simple substitution cypher where 1 = little square, 2 equals double vertical lines etc. Not rocket science to figure it out. Canā€™t imagine a store being so slack with commercially sensitive info today. And I loved the old mechanical cash registers. They were electrically powered, but the power just made the internal spinning wheels easier to move. It was glorious when the repair man opened them up, as was occasionally necessary. Like the insides of a Swiss watch. If they made them these days I bet theyā€™d put transparent covers on them just for the glory of watching the internal parts move in coordination. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/70 "2017-11-27T23:42:52Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > By the time my Mom died she had started to accumulate canned and packaged food far in excess of what made sense for a single woman. This was well beyond just some forgotten Spaghetti-os at the back of the pantry. Her life was otherwise normal with no hording of anything else, no obvious money worries, etc. It was pretty mysterious to us. This is not uncommon with advanced age, for whatever reason. I have _several pounds_ of cinnamon from deceased elderly relatives, and Iā€™m still going through a stock of plastic wrap/foil/etc. I inherited form the deceased parents of a friend who divided the horde among several households. I also had a stock of canned and boxed food from the household of a deceased person as part of an exchange involving my labor in helping clean out the house. For better or worse, a recent invading raccoon ate about half of the boxed stuff, but right now my emergency food stocks are largely the result of Old People Hoarding. The difference being Iā€™m slowly eating my way through it. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/71 "2017-11-27T23:50:58Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My joke to the clerks was that the fruit would be genetically engineered to grow the barcode as part of its natural coloration. Imagine a breed of zebra that scans as UPC 12345-678901. šŸ™‚ No, I imagine that every zebra is unique and scans a different unique bar code, just like [humpback whale tails (photo)](http://wildwhales.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/4flukes_popup.jpg). Then, they can breed that into humans so every human will have a unique bar-code-like pattern, plainly visible, much easier to scan and parse than fingerprints or retina scans. Unhackable and unforgeable. Nationwide, if not worldwide, registry of every single one. Weā€™ll also be bred with organic bio-GPS-trackers growing inside of us, with a central tracking database update with our coordinates at least once every five minutes. ---
**Author:** ![JHBoom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/13edae/32.png) [@JHBoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JHBoom)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/72 "2017-12-08T12:19:12Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > When I worked in a movie theater in about 1986, not only did things not have bar codes, but we didnā€™t have a register or anything like that. We (all teenagers) were expected to add up all the candy, popcorn, and drinks a customer ordered in our head, and make change the same way. > > Once a week we did inventory by manually counting all the candy, drink glasses, and popcorn tubs, presumably to see how accurate we were. > > Iā€™m amazed thinking back on that. Math? In our heads? Quickly enough that customers didnā€™t complain? Does that exist anymore? Same here, '90-'92. No cash register in the box office or the concession stand. We inventoried at the beginning & end of every shift, though. ## I got really good at simple mental math in those two years. I still enjoy beating the register to both the total and the change when I feel like itā€¦ > [@chappachula](#): > > Back in the old days, closing the store for inventory day was a common event. > > I seem to remember special sales were advertised as ā€œpre-inventory-day saleā€. They reduced prices on older items in order to sell them and get them out of the store. The idea was to make it easier to count the main products, without having odds and ends and individual pieces laying around. When I worked at Lowes, we didnā€™t advertise pre-inventory sales, but we would search our top-stock areas for oddball and forgotten items a couple weeks before the inventory contractor came in, and put said items out on clearance racks/tables to get it out of the store. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/73 "2017-12-09T03:13:17Z")
Iā€™m wondering about the timing. Until 1987, I lived in a podunk little township in Michigan, where the local grocery store was an IGA. Granted, it was brand new in 1985 or so, and offered competition from the Kroger about five miles down the road on the township/city border. And I marvelled at a laser scanners sometime before moving to the Detroit metropolitan area in 1987. This was IGA, you know, an independent grocer, not the size of Kroger (which didnā€™t have scanners). And it wasnā€™t long afterward (1993 or so?) that I though the AAFES Shoppettes on post were backwards for _not_ having laser scanners; they were pretty much ubiquitous by then. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/74 "2017-12-09T03:15:41Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > I was in Belgium a couple summers ago, and eggs had inkjet-like barcodes on them. Each one! My eggs in China had this. And my meat had a QR code so that I could see where it came from. No, really, Iā€™m not kidding. Thereā€™s so much distrust of companies there, that at least some of them go to great pains to provide tracking information from slaughter to retail. It was actually kind of cool. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/75 "2017-12-09T03:36:14Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > My eggs in China had this. And my meat had a QR code so that I could see where it came from. No, really, Iā€™m not kidding. Thereā€™s so much distrust of companies there, that at least some of them go to great pains to provide tracking information from slaughter to retail. It was actually kind of cool. Not disputing your info, but it raises a question ā€¦ If I/you/everyone generally donā€™t trust the vendors, why do I/you/we trust the info the vendor is giving us? Said another way, thereā€™s a good business in fake certificates of authenticity. How much happier should I be when looking at some good that appears to be authentic vs. some other good that appears to be authentic and has a certificate to ā€œprove itā€? Thereā€™s never absolute proof anywhere. Itā€™s all just layers of belts and suspenders. But ISTM once trust drops too far, even 20 layers of crappy suspenders adds up to almost zero. How is that playing out in China these days? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/76 "2017-12-09T11:36:29Z")
Chinese suppliers have been known to forge ISO9001 certificates. Without independent inspection Iā€™d be weary of anything they told me. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/77 "2017-12-10T02:00:23Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Thereā€™s never absolute proof anywhere. Itā€™s all just layers of belts and suspenders. But ISTM once trust drops too far, even 20 layers of crappy suspenders adds up to almost zero. Thatā€™s true. Most of my trust comes from the store itself; I trust that the Germans at Metro do all of their supply chain due diligence and keep on top of their suppliers. Yes, the store is mostly Chinese-run, but there are always Germans there, for much the same reason I was in China at my company. ---
**Author:** ![Annoying\_Buzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Annoying\_Buzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annoying_Buzz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130/78 "2017-12-11T02:59:18Z")
It technically wasnā€™t before barcodes (late 80s), but the pharmacy I worked in as a teen didnā€™t use them. New inventory would come in with a list of retail prices, weā€™d tag everything with one of those gun-type sticker applicators, then we just had to type in the prices at the register and remember whether given items took sales tax or not. The register area was festooned with handwritten notes about prices for different brands of cigarettes and candy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-before-barcodes/802130.md?page=3)