How Barcode..work?

How Barcode..work?
What are these barcodes made up of physically?
How they work?
I assume that it costs around US.02 per barcode print.

How can they be produced so cheaply?
For example, what are those black lines physically made up of?

Best answer:

uh because they are suposed to be cheap.

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1 Comment for How Barcode..work?

1. wires | May 8th, 2010 at 8:40 am

The black lines are simply ink, just like the ink that prints words on a page. The scanner uses a laser and reads the reflection from the barcode as a number. This number is cross-referenced in a data base that has the information for that bar code such as price, make and model, etc. If you look at a bar code closely you will see a long number in small print below the bars. This is the number that the bar code represents. You could enter this number manually into your computer and get the same results. It would just take much longer to enter the number.