What did the first bar-code look like?

The first barcode, known as the Universal Product Code (UPC), was developed in the early 1970s and featured a series of vertical black bars of varying widths separated by white spaces. The original design consisted of a rectangular pattern that encoded numeric data, typically representing product information like the manufacturer and item number. This initial barcode was first scanned successfully on June 26, 1974, on a pack of Wrigley’s Chewing Gum. The design has since evolved, but the basic concept of using bars to represent data remains unchanged.