Way back in 1975, I happened to tune in to a weekly, Sunday afternoon, Catholic radio program (I'm not Catholic) where the priest/host was interviewing a representative from a very well known cash register company. That guest was introducing listeners to, what was then, the coming new universal product code (UPC) - the barcode that today identifies/interfaces, in computer language, nearly everything that we touch.
It would be just a few years after that radio program, in a grocery store, that I would first see a computerized laser reader in action. Astoundingly, the checker just waved an item over that multi-beamed electronic eye and "BEEP!"--the rest is history (as we now all know).