Chapter 6 - Background Information; General Bar Code Information - Hand Held Products Quick Check Bar Code Verifiers 800 User Manual

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Background Information

General Bar Code Information

Bar code technology allows you to get information into a computer much more
accurately than keying. Quick Check 600/800 Verifiers measure the quality of
the bar code symbols to ensure the proper information is encoded and can be
read. This instrument is both a quick, easy-to-use pass/fail tester for bar code
symbols and a powerful measuring tool for detailed testing of these same
symbols. You can set your verifier to use either traditional or ISO/IEC
parameters to analyze bar code symbols. The quality information from the
verifier is presented through an easy-to-read liquid crystal display (LCD), light
emitting diodes (LEDs), audible tones and printouts.
Bar code symbols consist of a series of parallel, adjacent bars and spaces. Data
is encoded in the width patterns of the symbol. These patterns, when interfaced
with computer software, provide a large amount of information. Bar code
systems offer a high degree of confidence that data entry is accurate. The
substitution error rate, the rate at which a character may contain an error, is very
low. The first read rate, the probability (percentage) that an attempt to input data
will result in data being captured on the first attempt, is very high.
Bar code technology dates back to the 1960s and early 1970s, but did not come
into widespread use as we know it today until the later 1970s. Retail
applications, primarily grocery stores, saw the need for automatic identification
technology and pushed development ahead. As many other industries began to
take advantage of bar code technology, they often needed to develop their own
symbology, or type of bar code, with unique specifications and standards.
Depending on the data that needs to be recorded, several different symbologies
can be used. Communication cannot occur unless the reading and printing tools
use a compatible symbology.
The symbologies tested by the verifier include:
• EAN/UPC
• Code 39
• Interleaved 2 of 5
• Code 128
• Code 93
Quick Check® 600/800 Series User's Guide
• Codabar
• Code 11
• Code 16K
• Code 49
• MSI Code
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