Paul McEnroe’s role in developing the UPC barcode hasn’t been fully acknowledged

https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/the-barcode-inventor-didnt-get-credit-now-hes/458787

by toss1 • 3 years ago

36 10 3 years ago

jwestbury• 3 years ago

Misleading article, at least at the beginning -- the UPC is a kind of barcode, and this guy didn't invent the barcode as a whole. Norman Joseph Woodland did invent the barcode, just not the UPC.

toss1• 3 years ago

perhaps read the article. Woodland is discussed at length. Yes, ht did invent a circular barcode years before, but it did not work. He later joined the McEnroe IBM team stating he was very impressed with how much better their work was than his, and continued long after McEnroe left. No one is trying to deny him credit, but credit for the work of inventing barcodes that ACTUALLY WORK is evidently due to McEnroe.

olddustytrail• 3 years ago

This is basically an ad for a book. I'm not saying it's wrong or not interesting, but it is what it is.

friend_and_foe• 3 years ago

Yeah I also avoid reading bookshill reviews disguised as interviews.

mymac• 3 years ago

I've invented plenty of stuff that 100's of millions of people use every day. Whether I get credit or not doesn't really matter to me. It paid for more than half my life (and those of a lot of people around me) and it made the world a little bit better (and sometimes a little bit worse).

Inventions are a dime a dozen, if you care that much about the credit or the money then you should go try to patent your invention, and if you don't then that's fine too but there is no such thing as CC-BY for inventions (though, technically you could patent something and then put the patent in the public domain 'Manfred' style).

_3u10• 3 years ago

I was hoping this was a story about tenis, and maybe this guy was John McEnroes dad

whywhywouldyou• 3 years ago

Fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing.

paulgerhardt2• 3 years ago

Interesting parallels with the iPhone development.[1]

Tony Fadell was credited with creating the iPod and tasked with porting it to a phone with Apple's P1 project. Jobs picked Scott Forstall to lead a competing clean slate effort (P2). Jobs ultimately went with the P2 design and Fadell later came on to market it - later crediting himself as the creator of the iPhone.

McEnroe:Forstall::Woodland:Fadell

[1] https://sonnydickson.com/2017/01/11/how-apple-picked-what-ca...

umeshunni• 3 years ago

The story of the alternate P1 design for the iPhone is fascinating and something I didn't know about before this. I found another article with some more details: https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/11/14240918/apple-interview-...

paulgerhardt2• 3 years ago

There are two origin stories. The Verge article tells Tony's.

The CHM interview tells Scott's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiuVggWNqSA&t=1467s&ab_chann...

Given the iPhone hardware came from skunkworks iPad team (and not iPod) and the software came from the Mac team (and not iPod) I personally take Tony's claims of inventing the iPhone with a grain of salt and opportunistic when Scott was later forced out over the unrelated Apple Maps launch issues. But you should judge for yourself. It's probably not clear cut.

Paul McEnroe’s role in developing the UPC barcode hasn’t been fully acknowledged

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