The History of Kimball tag

Release time:2013-09-29      Source:admin      Reads:
A Kimball tag is a cardboard hangtag that included both human readable data and perforations to support computer processing. A Kimball tag is an early form of stock control label, like its later successor barcode, supported back office data processing functions. They were predominantly used by the retail clothing industry.

Sears, Roebuck & Company sponsored the development of a specialized punched card 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, and the Karl J. Braun Engineering Company of Stamford, Connecticut developed the garment hangtags and the machine that marked and punched them.

The Potter Instrument Company of Great Neck, New York developed a photoelectric tag reader. The reader scanned 100 hangtags per minute. A lens system enlarged the image of a hangtag's holes projected by a gas-type photoflash tube onto an array of phototubes. The phototubes fired thyratrons that activated relay logic to translate the tag's coded digits into Hollerith code and punch a standard sized punched card.

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