Datastrip Code
From Just Solve the File Format Problem
Datastrip Code, originally Softstrip, is reportedly the first 2D bar code symbology, released in 1985. (But the comedy book, The 80s: A Look Back, published in 1979, had fake 2D bar codes in it.) The intended purpose was as a way for magazines to publish computer-readable data, such as program listings (which, in those days, were commonly printed in computer magazines such that the user would have to type them in).
Links
- Wikipedia article (under the title Cauzin Softstrip)
- US Patent 4,728,783
- 1985 New York Times article
- 1987 review (8000 Plus magazine, issue 15, December 1987, p40) - includes sample barcode
- Pictures of Softstrip hardware and sample barcode
- Combating terrorism at sea with Datastrip (press release)
- Datastrip Code info
- 2016 blog post by "FozzTexx" reverse-engineering some details
- Distripitor, a 2016 barcode generator (in Objective-C; apparently depends on ClearLake and Makefiles from the same author to build)
- Decoding the Cauzin Softstrip: a case study in extracting information from old media. Reimsbach, M., Aycock, J. Arch Sci 21, 281–294 (2021).