For some time some esoteric lunatics in mostly german-speaking countries believed that bar codes radiate “harmful radiation” or “vibrations”, either permanently or when scanned. Don’t worry how that works, they're lunatics, after all.
Then some genius started selling a magic “bar code suppressor” for 20 €, which those lunatics can use to make that bar code harmless.
It was a permanent marker. To “suppress” a bar code you simply draw a line through the bar code.
And then some manufacturers started printing that magic crossline themselves on their packaging. It doesn’t harm their bottom line, it still scans and they still can sell to lunatics.
But why was IBM’s barcode was superior to RCA? The article just skips over why there was any debate in the first place, other than RCA wanting it because they already had it
I can fathom a guess why IBM was better than RCA just from looking at them.
Firstly, RCA offered half the information density in the same physical space, assuming line width being equal between the two due to the data being in the radius of the circle, meaning the rest was redundant.
And secondly, paralel lines ware most likely easier to accurately print quickly by cheap printers of the time than concentric circles.
They fixed that fairly quickly in supermarkets when they introduced the star-shaped scanning surface with 6(?) lasers that could scan MOST items with a single swipe so long as the barcode was pointing down. And the big ol' red and green lights that flashed when you did it right or wrong.
For some time some esoteric lunatics in mostly german-speaking countries believed that bar codes radiate “harmful radiation” or “vibrations”, either permanently or when scanned. Don’t worry how that works, they're lunatics, after all.
Then some genius started selling a magic “bar code suppressor” for 20 €, which those lunatics can use to make that bar code harmless.
It was a permanent marker. To “suppress” a bar code you simply draw a line through the bar code.
And then some manufacturers started printing that magic crossline themselves on their packaging. It doesn’t harm their bottom line, it still scans and they still can sell to lunatics.