Dave P. <imbibe@mindspring.com> wrote:

>Bar Code Pioneer Proved the Technology Was Robust
>By James R. Hagerty, March 31, 2022, WSJ

>The basic idea behind the bar code came from research by
>N. Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in the late 40s.
>In the early 60s, David J. Collins pioneered a way to scan
>bar codes with flashes of light. By developing a system to
>identify railcars, he helped turn bar codes and their
>derivatives into an inescapable badge of modern life, used
>to identify merchandise, inventories, packages and people
>getting on airplanes.

>Collins, a civil engineer, was working for a Sylvania Electric
>Products Inc. lab in Waltham, Mass., when he came up with his
>idea for tracking railcars. He labeled the cars with patterns
>of bars in various colors. Scanners read those codes as cars
>hauled gravel through Massachusetts. “It worked very, very well,”
>Collins said later.

He absolutely proved that the concept worked. But a railroad yard is a
harsh environment. Freight cars are exposed to dirt, dust, oil, debris.
The labels wore off frequently. It was not a long-term solution for
sorting freight cars into consists.

Barcodes are more practical indoors.

>Railroads tried his KarTrak system in the late 60s & 70s but
>later switched to RFID tags. Collins left Sylvania to form
>Computer Identics Corp., which developed laser scanners and
>provided systems to General Motors to keep track of parts on
>a Pontiac assembly line. Computer Identics also used the codes
>to track packages.

>Others developed codes and scanners for groceries and other
>merchandise, starting with a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum in 1974.

He didn't work on this. That was George Joseph Laurer, an engineer for
IBM under contract to the grocery industry.

>Collins died March 12 of complications from amyotrophic lateral
>sclerosis, or ALS, at his home in Duxbury, Mass. He was 86.

>David Jarrett Collins, the youngest of 3, was born Feb. 11, 1936,
>and grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. His father ran a railroad-
>supply company. As a teenager, he rowed competitively on the
>Schuylkill River with the Vesper Boat Club.

>He studied civil engineering at Villanova, where he graduated in
>1957. While working on his undergrad degree, he had a summer job
>as a surveyor for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He earned a master's
>degree in industrial management at the Massachusetts Institute of
>Technology in 1959.

>His railroad experience helped give him his research idea when he
>joined Sylvania. In an interview with an MIT publication, he
>recalled that punch-card systems that tracked railcars were
>subject to errors, leading to “a lot of chaos.”

>Collins later led Computer Identics as chairman & CEO. In the
>late 70s, the Massachusetts-based company supplied bar-code
>technology to track runners in the NYC Marathon. In Dec 1983,
>Computer Identics went public with an IPO of stock.

>Seeking to expand in Europe, Computer Identics formed a joint
>venture with NV Bekaert. That Belgian company eventually acquired
>a 25% stake in Computer Identics. As Computer Identics struggled
>with losses in the mid-1980s, Bekaert and other shareholders put
>pressure on the management. Collins gave up the CEO job in 1986
>and stepped down as chairman in 1987. He formed a consulting firm,
>Data Capture Institute, in Duxbury.

>Collins is survived by his wife, Joan Hacker Collins, 5 kids &
>10 grandkids. An earlier marriage ended in divorce.

>Collins was an enthusiastic sailboat cruiser and racer. One of
>his sons, Jarrett Collins, recalled in a eulogy that his father
>was so determined to sail that, when short-handed, he sometimes
>resorted to recruiting his daughter's former boyfriends as crew members

>https://www.wsj.com/articles/bar-code-pioneer-proved-the-technology-was-robust-11648735339