On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Michael Black wrote:
I can't remember the time it was introduced, but it was late enough that a new crowd was coming to the computer magazines, and they didn't want totype in the programs. I suspect also the programs were getting larger, and the magazines didn't want to use the space for the listings, though Ican't remember how well the Cauzin strips worked at saving space for listings.
They were introduced in 1985. Programs started getting larger and more strips were needed to accomodate them. Strips were only 1k each and you could get printing software to create 5k strips but needed a laser printer to print them. The limited clarity of the dot matrix printers could only produce the 1k strips. SoftStrip still exists in Connecticut and they make bar code readers.