Use the arrow keys to move between letters. Press Enter or Space on the first letter of a word, then again on the last letter. Press Escape to cancel.
A few of the words
- GUM
- A 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum was the very first product ever rung up by a barcode scanner, on June 26, 1974. That historic pack is now on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- BARCODE
- The Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode standard was adopted by the grocery industry in 1973, but Troy, Ohio gave it its very first real-world scan just one year later.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- SCANNER
- The laser scanner used that day in Troy was made by NCR Corporation. It read the barcode by bouncing a laser beam off the stripes and translating the pattern of light and dark into a product code.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- RECEIPT
- The receipt printed at that first scan is also preserved — a paper record of a pack of gum that quietly marked the start of the modern checkout experience.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
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barcode first scan word search · free, large-print, no sign-up · June 26 1974 history · supermarket word search
The Barcode Gets Its First Scan: a free large-print word search
Barcode first scan word search — free and large-print — honoring the June 26, 1974 checkout moment that changed shopping forever.
About The Barcode Gets Its First Scan
On June 26, 1974, a cashier at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, passed a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum across a scanner — and the world heard its first barcode beep. The striped black-and-white symbol on the package held a simple price and product code, but what it unlocked was enormous: faster lines, leaner shelves, and a retail system that could track millions of items in an instant. That small rectangle of stripes still rides on nearly every product in every store, so ordinary now that it's almost invisible — until you remember the quiet Tuesday morning it all began.
How to play
- 1Find a word.Tap its first letter, then tap along to its last — the trail fills in and finishes itself when it spells a word. Or press the first letter and drag.
- 2Words run in straight lines.Across and down, and on the harder difficulties diagonally and backwards.
- 3It marks itself.Each word you find takes on its own soft colour on the grid and is crossed off the list.
- 4Choose a difficulty.Relaxed, Classic or Challenging set those directions and how much the word list helps — never the grid size. Tap the A buttons at the top to enlarge the letters, or pinch the grid.
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