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| Sunday, 19 September 2004 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Bars and stripes When you go to the supermarket or any other shop and buy any product, you will see a series of stripes on the cover of the product. Don't just dismiss it as a piece of modern art because it actually tells a story! It is really Bar Vellous! At checkpoint counters mostly abroad, a scanner 'reads' the stripes and converts them into a sequence of numbers. This is usually 13 digits long and is found beneath the bar code. This sequence is relayed to the shop's computer which decides what the item is and how much it costs from information stored in its memory. The product details are then sent back to the checkpoint and as if by magic, it appears on the cash register screen and on your receipt. The first two numbers tell you in which country the product is registered. This does not have to be where it is made. The UK is 50, Denmark 57 and Australia 93. Some countries have three-digit codes. South Korea is 880 to mark the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Singapore is 888, because 8 is thought to be a lucky number in the Far East! Two special codes replace the country codes on newspapers and magazines (977) and books (978). Each company has its own individual five digit code. So for example, Cadbury is 00183 and Nestle is 00243. The second group of five digits tells the computer where to find the information on the product including the price, within its memory. Different manufacturers can have the same product code - so 93452 might be a can of baked beans for one but a chocolate bar for another! The last figure is called a check digit. It is calculated from the other numbers. It makes sure that the bar code is 'read' properly by the scanner and that the product details are correctly located from the computer's memory. Courtesy: Young Telegraph. |
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