A Kimball tag was a cardboard tag that included both human readable and perforations to support computer processing (by the offline, "batch" processing common in their 1970s heyday). A Kimball tag was an early form of stock control

Stock control

Stock control is used to evaluate how much stock is used. It is also used to know what is needed to be ordered. Stock control can only happen if a stock take has taken place. Stock rotation must be put into use with stock control by using the oldest products before the newer products....

 label that, like its later successor the barcode

Barcode

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...

, supported back office data processing functions. They were predominantly used by the retail clothing ("fashion") industry.

History

Sears, Roebuck & Company sponsored the development of a specialized punched card

Punched card

A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...

 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

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and the Karl J. Braun Engineering Company of Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford, Connecticut

Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...

 developed the garment tags and the machine that marked and punched them.

The Potter Instrument Company of Great Neck, New York

Great Neck, New York

The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...

 developed a photoelectric tag reader. The reader scanned 100 tags per minute. A lens system enlarged the image of a tag's holes projected by a a gas-type photoflash tube

Flashtube

A flashtube, also called a flashlamp, is an electric arc lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for very short durations. Flashtubes are made of a length of glass tubing with electrodes at either end and are filled with a gas that, when triggered, ionizes...

 onto an an array of phototube

Phototube

A phototube is a type of gas-filled or vacuum tube that is extremely sensitive to light in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.-Operating principles:...

s. The phototubes fired thyratron

Thyratron

A thyratron is a type of gas filled tube used as a high energy electrical switch and controlled rectifier. Triode, tetrode and pentode variations of the thyratron have been manufactured in the past, though most are of the triode design...

s that activated relay logic

Relay logic

Relay logic is a method of controlling industrial electronic circuits by using relays and contacts.-Ladder logic:The schematic diagrams for relay logic circuits are often called line diagrams, because the inputs and outputs are essentially drawn in a series of lines...

 to translate the tag's coded digits into Hollerith code

Hollerith code

Hollerith Code is the 12-bit code used on a punched-card.In 1896, Herman Hollerith formed a company called the Tabulating Machine Company. This company developed a line of machines that used punched cards for tabulation...

and punch a standard sized punched card.