A Kimball tag was a cardboard tag that included both human and

machine-readable data Machine-readable data, or computer-readable data, is data in a format that can be processed by a computer. Machine-readable data must be structured data. Attempts to create machine-readable data occurred as early as the 1960s. At the same time tha ...

to support

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

processing. A Kimball tag was an early form of

stock control Inventory control or stock control can be broadly defined as "the activity of checking a shop's stock". It is the process of ensuring that the right amount of supply is available within a business. However, a more focused definition takes into acco ...

label that, like its later successor the

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

, supported back office data processing functions. They were predominantly used by the retail clothing ("

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

") industry. Tagging guns which use plastic toggles to attach price tags to clothing are still known as "Kimball guns" (or the corruption, "kimble guns"), although the tags now use

bar codes A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

History

Sears, Roebuck & Company Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as ...

sponsored the development of a specialized

system to track garment inventory, produce timely management reports, and reduce clerical errors. A pilot system was operational in 1952. The A. Kimball Company, an established price tag manufacturer in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and the Karl J. Braun Engineering Company of

Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 2020 ...

developed the garment tags and the machine that marked and punched them. The Potter Instrument Company of

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck (village), New York, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, New York, Great Neck Es ...

developed a photoelectric tag reader for the 1952 pilot system. The reader scanned 100 tags per minute. A lens system enlarged the image of a tag's holes projected by a gas-type photoflash tube onto an array of

phototube A phototube or photoelectric cell is a type of gas-filled or vacuum tube that is sensitive to light. Such a tube is more correctly called a 'photoemissive cell' to distinguish it from photovoltaic or photoconductive cells. Phototubes were previ ...

s. The phototubes fired

thyratron A thyratron is a type of gas-filled tube used as a high-power electrical switch and controlled rectifier. Thyratrons can handle much greater currents than similar hard-vacuum tubes. Electron multiplication occurs when the gas becomes ionized, pro ...

s that activated

relay logic Relay logic is a method of implementing combinational logic in electrical control circuits by using several electrical relays wired in a particular configuration. Ladder logic The schematic diagrams for relay logic circuits are often called l ...

to translate the tag's coded digits into

Hollerith code A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to ...

and punch a standard sized punched card.

References

Supply chain management Automatic identification and data capture {{retailing-stub