Free Barcode Reader From Radio Shack 241
Skyhawk128 writes: "I was in my local Radio Shack yesterday, and as I was checking out, the manager offered me a free barcode scanner to use with their new catalog. By hooking up the scanner to your PS2 keyboard port and installing their software (Windows only) you can scan the bar codes found on most pages and be taken a web page with expanded information about that product. They claim to be able to scan the bar code on all sorts of things (i.e.- UPC codes on food, etc.) I have been too busy playing with the scanner in Notepad to install the software, but I thought this gadget might be of interest to other geeks." Several folks have confirmed that you can get a free barcode reader if you're into it. P'raps a SANE module shall soon follow? [Note from timothy:] Not all RS locations are giving them out yet -- the nearest one to me, despite telling me otherwise on the phone, refused to give me one until they had the new (bar-coded) catalogs in stock. That's at Chatham Station shopping center in Howard County, MD.
Finally!!! (Score:3)
"But sir, there's no such thing as a 'cpu fan'." (From 1998)
"Why does your motherboard need a battery? You plug it in to the wall... What do you mean by 'CMOS'?"
Re:The next I-Opener? (Score:1)
A really good friend of mine would put barcodes on all of his floppies. Then had a Turbo Pascal program (this was a while ago mind you, back when we used floppies). He could just click on a floppy and a norton-command looking dialog would pop up and show him what was currently on the disk, according to the database. Then he just updated the database before removing the disk. It sure beats rewriting labels a dozen times on floppies you reuse frequently.
Personally I would put them on all my items, then click on them when I loaned them to friends. Except to see a loan database for GTK+ when I get one of these. Also putting them on my many systems and all the hdds, pci cards, etc. would make keeping track of my hardware and where it is a bit easier.
Re:Scanner returns an ID number -- privacy concern (Score:1)
Code39 1 23 1 23 1 23
.ahb6. C3nZ CNjY CxfX. #000 111 222
.ahb6. ChbW D3D3 DNz2. #333 444 555
.ahb6. Dxv1 Dhr0 E3T7. #666 777 888
.ahb6. ENP6 #999
.ahb6. aGic aqeb aaaa. #aaa bbb ccc
.ahb6. bWCh bGyg bquf. #ddd eee fff
.ahb6. baqe cWSl cGOk. #ggg hhh iii
.ahb6. cqKj caGi dW8p. #jjj kkk lll
.ahb6. dG4o dq0n daWm. #mmm nnn ooo
.ahb6. eXmt eHis erer. #ppp qqq rrr
.ahb6. ebaq fXCx fHyw. #sss ttt uuu
.ahb6. fruv fbqu gXSB. #vvv www xxx
.ahb6. gHOA grKz z2DN. #yyy zzz $$$
.ahb6. BgXS y2nJ zMzM. #/// %%%
.ahb6. AgHO BM5U Bw1T. #+++ ---
SNs:
.C3 n Z C3 n Z C3 n X E3 n Z E3 n Y CN n X
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 8 0 1 1 0 2
.C3 n Z C3 n Z C3 n X E3 n Z Dh D 0 CN n X
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 7 4 7 1 0 2
.ahb6.bWChbGygbquf.
.ahb6 Code 39 ?39
.aaer Codabar CRR
.CNf7 Code128 128
.fHmc UPC-A UPA
.fGj2 UPC-A(5) ?15
.fGjX UPC-A(2) ?12
.fHmg UPC-E UPE
.fGz2 UPC-E(5) ?55
.fGzX UPC-E(2) ?52
.bNjW EAN/JAN13 ?13
.bNb2 EAN/JAN13(5) ?35
.bNbX EAN/JAN13(2) ?32
Note that it does Code128, so it does handle the
complete ASCII character set, we believe. The question marks above are probably lower-case letters.
Barcoded Code (Score:2)
(Didn't DDJ or one of the other early computer magazines try running a few issues with progam source (or was it binary?) printed in some sort of barcode, many years back?)
Java-based scanner drivers for Linux (Score:1)
Last year, a team, including myself, integrated scanners using these drivers running on Java/Linux.
The article says that the software is for Windows-only (most likely OPOS), but with these Java-based JPOS drivers, the cuecat can be ported quickly to Linux.
How much do they need to know? (Score:1)
-=-=-
-=-=-
More Info for better targeted marketing! No thanks!
TAG - Your it!
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Actually, I believe the tattoed serial number was the least of the holocaust victim's problems. So what if someone thinks a barcode is a cool tattoo? It is not as if they are forced to work until their death...
Re:Finally!!! (Score:1)
PowerZone card with your purchase of 5 12-packs of D batteries.
Is this like the old Radio Shack Battery Club Card?
Of course, my other favorite childhood memory of RS was going in and typing this program on the TRS-80 Model 1 (man, I really wanted one of those things...):
Probably the first program I ever wrote.
Re:Wired Magazine too (Score:1)
I'm thinking Pavlov(sp?) and the canine here.
Scanner returns an ID number -- privacy concerns (Score:3)
Qwerty Cue Cat (Score:1)
---
Rob Flynn
One liners. (Score:1)
A mouse and a cat on my desk? What's next, a dog? (Oh, that's Windoze. Never mind.)
(I'm in a strange mood this morning...)
More devices like this out there (Score:1)
Anyone care to hack it? (Score:1)
It'd be cool if someone can reverse-engineer the CueCAT for normal barcode scanning...
If the CueCAT is a standard wedge barcode decoder, I'm sure someone can hack their way around the software to extract the desired barcode data...
OTOH, if the "wedge" only captures the raw barcode bitmap, and requires the "CueCAT driver" to decode the barcode, someone has to write a barcode decoding algorithm...
FWIW, I wrote a Code 39 and Interleaved 2 of 5 decoder in college... It does NOT decode UPC's, though. If you're interested, you can get it here. [joechiu.com]
The source-code zip-file has a password: "timeline". The password is there because I normally release it as "postcard-ware"... (A little obnoxious, I know, but I've gathered some beautiful postcards from all over the world for this... And, really, anyone could have asked me to e-mail them the password, and I would.)
Please be gentle! It's old sleepless-newbie-student C code, but it did work. If someone can spend time to port it to Windows and the CueCAT, that'll be really cool... I don't have the time right now. :-(
Re:Flexibility? (Score:1)
CS2000 has a documented SDK. We have developed a java software to interface the device to any web site (via HTTP). Overall the interface to such devices is pretty simple. Unfortunately these devices connect to the computer via the COM port, which limits the use (pc only) and requires the device to be tethered to a computer.
The device is also useless without a serious database of codes (UPC or other in the case of cuecat) since the device can only return the information that it has read (ie. the bar code numbers). Checkout barpoint [barpoint.com] for what they claim is a database of 100 million UPC.
Re:"Can I help you?" "No" (Score:1)
See, this is funny. Why don't you moderate it up? I would if it were me. oy vey.
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...Image seared into mind.... (Score:1)
A modification on the Car MP3 player use (Score:1)
50 million units by '01 (Score:1)
For the cool factor (Score:1)
The _real_ decoding (Score:1)
- Do a 4->3 binhex-like decoding with the table [a..z][A..Z][0..9][+-]. Drop any incomplete byte
- Xor each value with 67
- Print as ascii
The first block is some kind of serial number, the second the type of barcode (UPA, C39, 128...), the third the barcode itself.
OG.
We won't be taking online orders until August 24th (Score:1)
---
Wired is giving out the same one (Score:1)
Re:This is great! (Score:1)
Mark Duell
Decoding the crypted barcode (Score:1)
SetWindowsHookEx allows a procedure to snag the message queue. Setting the first parameter to WH_KEYBOARD lets you grab keyboard messages.
The Keyboard Hook routine, KeyboardProc, gets the virtual-key code, the scan code -- which is OEM dependent, a code indicating it's not on the main keyboard, and some other useless flags.
Once I know what the scan code is, and what v-key codes are used for their 'fake' barcode values, it should be possible to
(a) swallow the serial number
(b) keep the context of first, second, third digit
(c) translate the code type (optional?)
(d) translate to the real barcode value
Dunno if this works under NT/2000, and likely things are different under various Unices.
Joel
hrm... problem? (Score:1)
USE FOR CLUBS? Other Free hardware (Score:1)
Re:Question.... (Score:1)
It's the TV show which has been using the ":C" for about a year or more now.
Many possibilities indeed! (Score:3)
However, I'd say a really cool, simple to apply use for these could be to Palms. They have a lot of application there, being portable and wireless. Perhaps I'll write this program of mine on the PalmOS.
Anyone in? =P
Re:Goddamn, yet another gimmegimme mentality (Score:1)
Business promotions on brick&mortar stores (to use the current buzzword) are af course dependent on the store, but on the Internet, a company would be really stupid (<flamebait>or actually, as introvert as an American company usually is</flamebait>) not to include clients from all around the world. After all, that's what the Internet is for...
And no, I'm not the poster of the grandparent message.
Re:Barcoded Code (Score:1)
Re:Probably no SANE module necessary (Score:2)
Re:No driver necessary (Score:1)
Privacy issues? (Score:2)
A few of us got it at work. Scanning in the same UPC with two different CATs, shows that the first number is a unique identifier. Same on every scan, but different for every CAT. If Radio Shack is taking down names and addresses (as they always do on every purchase) and scanning in the bar code of the CAT, then they are obviously tracking you.
Using it for the catalogs, and taking you to their website with their software is actually an awesome idea, and I think it will help them. I just am a bit queezy when they start tracking you too.
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Re:it isn't usb (Score:1)
I love the new sexy USB/firewire/bwafoodle busses, but I miss being able to wire together some logic straight off my parallel port, and have it do crazy shit no one else was using a computer to do. Like set off fireworks. Damn. I'm 'a' 'splode you!
Re:Anything for us poor canadians? (Score:1)
Re:nice, but you gotta lose sourceforge.net (Score:1)
This is great! (Score:2)
After looking at the website.. (Score:1)
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
Re:Finally!!! (Score:1)
Hot damn! (Score:1)
Popular Science (Score:1)
Re:These have become popular apparently (Score:1)
Most laptops have a PS/2 port that works at the same time as the keyboard.
Stuff like Palm would need an adapter, but I do remember seeing a PS/2 keyboard adaptor for the Palm.
Question.... (Score:1)
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
Wired will be mailing USB Cue:Cats out in November (Score:1)
My first thought was the same as everyone else's: Cool, free hardware! Let's hack it!
Ped Xing
Sounds like Digimarc (Score:1)
Shave, De-leg and Barcode your pets (Score:1)
I had some difficulty doing this to my cat, as I had to completely shave him down for the tattoo to go on easily. He didnt seem too happy about this and put up somewhat of a fight.
But, there's a solution
Cool eh ? !!!!
Library Addition (Score:1)
These have become popular apparently (Score:2)
It's not stupid, but you might be. (Score:1)
Hmmm, lemme think for a minute. Type a long URL to a specific resource, or scan a barcode with a pen-like apparatus sitting at my computer? Gee, I dunno!?
Also, how common is it to read magazines while conveniently next to your computer? I almost never do. That's what the toilet is for, and I'm afraid I don't have a terminal there yet. Am I missing something?
A brain, maybe?
How exactly were you planning to visit the URL if you are not next to your computer? And if you are not planning to visit the URL, what the hell are you complaining about?
Have people been demanding this capability?
Has that ever been a pre-requisite for creating a new piece of hardware or software?
The idea is, articles can now reference documents exactly, with long-ass URL's, and their users can just scan the barcodes in to go right to it, instead of having to type them. Hell, Digimarc uses your webcam to view the magazine ad (if known), and redirects you to the place. I personally find the scanner idea easier to use right now.
The point is, not everyone's a 90-word a minute geek like yourself.
-thomas
Its a... cat (Score:3)
Re:Stupid (Score:1)
You're right! Just think of what they could do with such private information!
Horrors!!
-thomas
C A T (Score:1)
Re:hrm... problem? (Score:2)
We're also a player in this field.
Stupid (Score:5)
-Vercingetorix
:Cat scanner (Score:2)
The official word to the stores was 'start giving them out as soon as you get the new catalogs.'
Of course the idea is to get you to come into the store and buy something while you're there.
The current version works with the ps2 keyboard port. (If you have an AT style keyboard you need an adaptor. A USB version is planned for novemeber.) RadioShack made a deal with a company called DigitalConvergence [digitalconvergence.com], the makers of the "Cue Cat". The ":" is their idea.
How to get a cuecat without going to RS (Score:3)
http://www.cuecat.com/getcat_form.html
It's usually a waste of time going in there, even if everything was free.
I doubt it (Score:2)
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
They have individual ID's!!!! (Score:2)
Here are scans of three different products using the same scanner:
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.fHmc.C3DZCxPWCNz2DNv7
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.aabI.y2nIy2z7.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.bNn7.C3f6Chj2DNy.
Here are three scans of the same product using three different scanners:
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.ahb6.eaya.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNf2CxrXCxnX.ahb6.eaya.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNj1C3b7CxnX.ahb6.eaya.
Note the
They might use the indiviual ids to track them! It's like a mac address or something.
Also, I took it apart. It contains what seems to be an industry standard red-led bar code scanner module. It connects to a pcboard with lots of little surface mount stuff thats over my head.
Anyhow, lets crack this thing!!
Re:Open your eyes guys!! (Score:2)
The standard software is always going to be the software that the sly people selling the barcode reader stick on the CD which ships with it. Those people are going to be the same people who want to do the advertising, and they are always going to try and stick on their own cheesy, smiley software.
--- You are a Target Market
Make your own bar codes (Score:3)
Re:Wired Magazine too (Score:3)
The cat thing seems like an interesting idea, although I'm a bit upset that it seems to not be USB, and therefore probably not Mac-compatible, and so I'm out of luck (unless I got a USB adapter for it and used it on my iBook which has Linux installed...), although I'll take any free stuff Wired sends me.
Still, I can't see wholly what the point of it all is. First off, the new media-type companies that advertise in Wired tend to have company.com URLs anyway, and they're not that hard to type in. When I tried the digimark'd ads in Wired, I was hoping for some special payoff given the neat-o way that I got to the site, but I didn't. Both the advertisers and the magazine publishers need to figure out exactly *why* this would be useful, and exploit it. If I got a treat for holding the magazine up, or scanning the barcode in, the company would certainly have one foot in the door as far as attracting my attention.
The real possibilities come with blending the printed magazine with online content. If Wired stories began to have an online component that you could get to with the gizmo, whatever it was, then there's something truly useful there. And, it could provide a way of verifying that the person viewing the site is a purchaser of the magazine, so online content could be kept from jeopardizing newstand sales.
Really, when you think about it, if these URL-entering devices were around two years ago, think about what that would have meant for Pathfinder...
_pete
Too many myths (Score:2)
There's a lot of people who have responded to this article and drawn the wrong conclusions. I'll dispel a few myths:
It's clear that just from the design of the scanner, that Digital Convergence didn't intend it to be really that hard to reverse engineer the encoding method. That's already been done [jounce.net]. The sourceforge project really is a good start, but ultimately any open source project also needs to be able to ask the questions of the DC database to get it's answers. Why? Well, think about it. Digital Convergence charges companies to store their UPC/ISBN/Whatever bar codes in their database with pointers to the product's website. How long do you think it will take DC to get mean once you start trying to kill their revenue stream? The other side of that is simple. Digital Convergence, would be definition have a large, established database full of bar codes and to whom they belong.
Now... here's my basic analysis of the datastream, just from playing with the few units I've got lying around (note that I'm crippled in that most of the units are not the retail version, so it's possible that something changed slightly -- I've only got 1 retail Cat). Note that all the tests I did below were done using a retail kit I obtained from my local Radio Shack.
The datastream seems to consists of 3 octets, each ending in a period. The first seems to be some kind of serial number. All the kits I have seem to prefix the first octet with 3nZC3nZC3nZ. The rest of the digits seem to be the same encoding method already published. The second octet seem to indicate either the length or the type of bar code. UPCs are "fHmc" ISBN's are "oGen" and the DC Cue's are "aabi", USP tacking numbers are "CNf7", Fedex Labels are "aaer", sort UPC (Coke cans..) are "fHmg". The third octet is of course the UPC symbol.
Unfortunately, I can't talk much about the Audio stream, or what the Winders software does over the network. Given what I know, these bits are probably pretty easy to figure out though.
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
Making a catalog of my ~two hundred CD's and ~five hundred books. They all have UPC codes on the back and hopefully there's an internet-accessible free database that could be used to return data from the UPC. This could let me quickly build my own little "card catalog", accessible through my own website, and also loaded onto my Handspring. This would help me avoid buying books I already own, and when some book comes up in conversation and I can't remember the exact title, or author, I would be able to find it.
But there's no way I'm going to type in all that stuff by hand. Running the barcode reader over each book would only take a couple of hours though, certainly worth doing.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
How familiar (Score:2)
Barcoding My Pets (Score:2)
I had some difficulty doing this to my cat, as I had to completely shave him down for the tattoo to go on easily. He didnt seem too happy about this and put up somewhat of a fight.
But, there was a solution
Cool eh ? !!!!
Re:I have yet to find a use for my barcode reader. (Score:2)
Reminds me of that free X10 [x10.com] stuff you can get. It works, and it's not a scam, but still .. it's kinda lame. A briefly amusing toy.
Yep. Free gizmo to plug into some port and make your computer look cooler, thereby attracting the babes.
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Re:These have become popular apparently (Score:2)
I think that the :CueCat is doomed to be a failure, like DigiMarc MediaBridge, but anything that gets me free hardware is good in my book.
---
The Hotmail addres is my decoy account. I read it approximately once per year.
Re:Wired Magazine too (Score:2)
Thanks Rob (Score:3)
No driver necessary (Score:2)
jinj [jplt.com]:
Kinda weak... (Score:2)
The install was long and it asked a bunch of personal questions, but you can skip those. It also had an annoying narrator. One reboot later...it is working.
So I start scanning every barcode I can find without getting out of my chair. Since my office is always a mess, I had a bunch. My Pepsi can took my to the Pepsico site. Nice. My Highlander DVD took me to something called Ingram Entertainment. Never heard of them. It went downhill from there....
My WordPerfect 2000 for Linux CD, my KLF CD, my Sony USB memory stick reader, my Star Wars X-wing book (Iron Fist) and my Dexxa mini-mouse all came up as unknown. I also tried it on a stack of D-link products to no avail.
I guess it will only be useful for the RS catalog, if I keep the thing hooked up.
Viv
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Ohh! This is perfect! (Score:3)
Does anyone know what barcode format it reads?? I know there are several different formats but only a couple in widespread use (UPC labels, etc).
I'm 90% done with my I-Opener [slashdot.org] mods and this thing will go nicely with my idea of putting it in the kitchen. I'll set up some software so I can scan food items I've run out of and automatically generate a grocery list and maybe transfer it to a palm pilot. Or perhaps I could scan a few things that I do have and plug that into a recipe database and have it spit back out what meals I can make from those ingredients...
This is in addition to having a convenient place to quickly check mail and get my tech news fix from slashdot of course.
Paper Referrer Stats: Probable reason for doing it (Score:2)
Sure you can just type in the URL.
However, with the barcodes, it is possible that they are embedding other information in that barcode besides just a convienent way to get to additional information on the product.
This probably doesn't apply to the Radio Shack catalog, but for advertising, they could include information identifying which magazine/newspaper, even exactly which issue, the user is scanning.
This would give Wired and Fortune a darn good reason for footing the bill (see other comments about these two magazines' scanners) for the cost of the scanners. They could show their advertisers how effective advertising in their magazine is. Of course, this doesn't give exact numbers, but they would be able to say "at least" some number of hits to their site were because of this.
I have no evidence of this being in the barcodes (I have neither barcode scanner nor catalog/ad at this time), but it is a possibility...
Open your eyes guys!! (Score:5)
Why would they be giving away bar code readers?
To make you look at their catalog? Of course not!
So they start by giving away the bar code readers. If the stuff becomes popular, they will stop giving them away, and people will buy them. But that's not where the big bucks are. It's just good for the scanner factories. And I'm sure they will be happy to let other companies sell Cue:cats
Think about it: whenever you scan your can of cola or your favourite magazine, your computer connects to Cue:cat, sends the code you scanned (and probably your ID as well, I don't know -- can someone check that?). Then, their server sends back the URL of some webpage.
Now, here is where they win: if their software becomes popular, their server will be the main gateway of all bar code readers. So if you scan a book, where is it going to go? To Amazon or barnes and nobles? If you scan a DVD, the logical URL would be the corresponding record of www.imdb.com. But do you really think it will ever send you there? They have no reason to set it up that way. So here is their first advantage: they control where you go on the net. And how long before it sends you to a "Pepsi is better" page whenever you scan a can of coke.
And then, if I am right to suppose that they send your ID with every scan, they can also collect a huge amount of info about you.
I think the idea of being able to scan a barcode and get a relevant URL is cool. But the interpretation of the code should not be left to one organization only. LET'S REACT!!! We should quickly release a concurrent software for Linux, Windows and Mac, and create an open search engine. The software should be open source so you can check it doesn't invade your privacy. The gateway you use should be configurable so that if you don't like the practices of one, you can switch to another. Ideally, I would imagine a gateway in which users could vote on the best URL for a bar code.
Let's create this OPEN:Cat FAST, before Radio Shack takes over the world! http://uscan.sourceforge.net is a step in the right direction, now we need to set up the server.
Intellectual Property Rights? (Score:2)
From what I can gather, FBM wrote software that works with their hardware. This violates no copyright law, unless the DMCA somehow figures into it (side beef: the DMCA is not copyright, it is use-right).
It might be one of those "software patent" or "business plan patent" cases. Do they hold a patent for using a scanner to get information based on a bar code? If so, they might have a legal (though, IMHO, illegitemate) beef.
Finally, though not likely, they are trying to enforce a license agreement. I don't have one of these scanners, so I don't know what sort of click-through licensing there is. However, these traditionally apply only to the software which is being thrown away here.
If it isn't any of the above, I figure they don't have a leg to stand on. They might as well have Craftsman sue me for using a claw hammer as a meat tenderizer.
Forbes (Score:2)
Re:Not just for windows (Score:3)
They will send you a
So far, the software only supports Windows 95, 98, NT 4, and Windows2000.
car mp3 player! (Score:3)
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
--
Q: What do you get when a Postmodernist joins the Mafia?
Re:so.. can anyone decode with it? (Score:2)
http://uscan.sourceforge.net/upc.txt
http://www.jounce.net/~maarken/
Re:USB / Serial anyone? (Score:2)
Also, it looks like it spits out a stream of keys which look something like
.C3nZC3nZC3nXD3T6ENv1C3nX.ahb6.eaq.
Where the string startnig with C3 is identical on all barcodes I scanned. My guess it is a serial
number. The
different barcodes). And the
I've been able to read Most barcodes that I've thrown at the thing: Normal product UPC, a book ISBN, the strange codes in the ratshack catalog, a barcode on the seagate disk I was given to install, and the bar codes on a box that some electrical parts came in.
My guess is that there's a code for these the bar code. It looks like it is 5 or 6 bits per character, encoded in some strange way. If it is 6 bits, then SG is 12 bits, which would imply that each character of bar code delivers 4 bits. If SG is really 24 bits (start S G stop), then we're delivering 8 bits, which seems wrong because I didn't see anything in the control character or
upper half of the range. So we may be looking at a radix 62 encoding (A-Za-z0-9).
Anyway, enough musings, I'll bet I've overlooked a pointer to the specs posted elsewhere on this page
Re:This is great! (Score:2)
He rings up as a $.35 pack of JuicyFruit.
NecroPuppy
Probably no SANE module necessary (Score:2)
Wired Magazine too (Score:2)
There must be big money in this somewhere. The previous issue of Wired had all the ads encoded with a watermarking technology that supposedly let you hold an ad up to a video camera and extract a URL from it. Even the current issue still has an ad by these video readable ad guys, though this technology sounds too complex and ads a noticable distortion to the ad backgrounds.
I suppose the next step is to print unique barcodes for every ad in every copy of the magazine / catalog printed, allowing them to track all sorts of interesting things.
Ain't technology grand?
G.
Just Say NO to service agreements (Score:2)
Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
Bar Code fun (Score:2)
Helpful Tip! (Score:3)
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
Oh come on, it's got some use. It's a great piece of kitsch (sp?). 100 years from now it might get high praise on whatever 22nd century manifestation of Antiques Roadshow they happen to have.
Re:Flexibility? (Score:2)
CueCats and the RS2001 Catalog - Employee (Score:2)
Re:Thanks Rob (Score:2)
Bastards! (Score:2)
Re:so.. can anyone decode with it? (Score:2)
am I close?
Re:Flexibility? (Score:2)
=P
--
$you = new YOU;
Not just for windows (Score:5)
Re:Probably no SANE module necessary (Score:2)
I've been working on reverse engineering the code they used for a day or so now. Translating ASM back into C after not working with ASM for a few years sucks.
Anyways, they use a method of selectively garbling it based on the length of the UPC and a few other tricks. Without their special keyboard hooked driver DLL, you'll just get gobbdygook back from their cuecat hardware.
I just hope the fact that this was mentioned on
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Re:These have become popular apparently (Score:2)
I have yet to find a use for my barcode reader... (Score:2)
About 8 years ago, I picked up a barcode reader that probably works the same way -- the keyboard plugs into the scanner, the scanner plugs into the kb port, and the scanner simply transmits the barcode as if you had typed the equivalent text. It was in a dumpster near where I was working, and I dug it out, took it home, and plugged it in. It worked, and I was happy.
Then I tried to think of something to use it for. And came up empty.
I used it once or twice while working on a project that required printing some barcodes, but other than that, I never really used it.
So I have to say I'm not sure this will be of much use to anyone, except, perhaps, for the purpose Radio Shack intended it.
Which does not mean, of course, that I'm not going to run out first thing tomorrow and pick up one for myself. 8^)
Other uses for the free barcode scanner... (Score:3)
Cheap Linux based Point of Sale terminal.
Print up yard sale tags for multiple family yard sales and total up the sales at the end of day by family.
Inventory tags for a small business.
For the institutional pharmacy, tag your drugs and tag the patient label and scan in both to ensure that the drug dispensed matches the drug prescribed on the patients' label.
Use bar coded ID tags at security stations such as convention entrances to see if the individual is allowed to enter the event.
Anyone else have any other suggestions? I have to go watch "That 70's Show" now or I would thing of some more.