Datastrip Code

Datastrip Code, originally Softstrip, is reportedly the first 2D bar code symbology, released in 1985. (But the comedy book, The 80s: A Look Back, published in 1979, had fake 2D bar codes in it.) The intended purpose was as a way for magazines to publish computer-readable data, such as program listings (which, in those days, were commonly printed in computer magazines such that the user would have to type them in).

Links

 * Wikipedia article (under the title Cauzin Softstrip)
 * US Patent 4,728,783
 * 1985 New York Times article
 * 1987 review (8000 Plus magazine, issue 15, December 1987, p40) - includes sample barcode
 * Pictures of Softstrip hardware and sample barcode
 * Combating terrorism at sea with Datastrip (press release)
 * Datastrip Code info
 * Cauzin Softstrip Application Notes & Marketing Material (1986), at the Internet Archive.
 * ANTIC Interview 115 - Atari podcast interviews Cauzin staffers Bob Brass and Peter D’Amato (Oct 2015).
 * 2016 blog post by "FozzTexx" (Chris Osborn) reverse-engineering some details
 * Distripitor, a 2016 barcode generator (in Objective-C; apparently depends on ClearLake and Makefiles from the same author to build)
 * Description of decoding a freshly-generated Softstrip as part of a challenge (Will Sowerbutts, Sep 2016). Includes a Python decoder (not fully general).
 * Reverse Engineering The Cauzin Softstrip. Michael Reimsbach, MSc thesis at Michael Reimsbach. Technical Report – STL-TR-2018-03 (series ISSN 2364-7167). October 2018.
 * Describes the Softstrip format in detail, and differences from the later Datastrip format. Points to a corpus of examples (contempory and modern). Describes Softstrip decoder software (not published?).
 * Decoding the Cauzin Softstrip: a case study in extracting information from old media. Reimsbach, M., Aycock, J. Arch Sci 21, 281–294 (2021).