14 Jul
2004
14 Jul
'04
2:24 a.m.
In message <009b01c469a9$fe295e50$30406b43@66067007>
"Keys" <jrkeys(a)concentric.net> wrote:
I guy told me that the :C optical reader was great for
scanning books into
your computer, so I got one out of the warehouse and loaded the software
that came with it.
The CueCat (aka :C) is a barcode scanner, not a text scanner.
You can scan
barcodes with it and it dumps the data (in an encoded format) into the
keyboard buffer.
Now the problem is I can not get to the company
website
to get the code to use the software?
DigitalConvergence went bankrupt a few years
ago. The servers that :CRQ used
to look up barcodes are dead anyway.
I want to start scanning in all the
books in the collection into my laptop (I have over 1200 books to enter).
If you
just want to create a database of books, with ISBN numbers and
suchlike, there is some software out there. I think I used "Catnip" from
<http://blort.org/cuecat/> - there's also another driver available from
<http://cuecatastrophe.com/>. YMMV.
Speaking of CueCats, I really should get another one, reverse engineer the
analog front-end, then graft a PIC microcontroller onto it and DIY a barcode
decoder. Hmm. Sounds like fun :P
ISTR there were also some HP barcode wands listed on VCM - I wonder if
they've been sold yet...
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... RAM = Rarely Adequate Memory