we had a demo model, too....it basically just scanned in the data as if you typed it in on the keyboard. ----- Original Message ---- From: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> To: wlug@mail.wlug.org Cc: Brian J. Conway <bconway@alum.wpi.edu>; andystewart@comcast.net Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 10:44:56 PM Subject: Re: [Wlug] Seeking help with a USB barcode scanner On Friday 30 March 2007, Brian J. Conway wrote:

We used similar devices extensively in our wafer fab at my old job (hi Mike),

moo

though not under Linux more than a couple times as my desk. Since my experience is only partially relevant, I can offer a few words as a start. The scanners we used had interchangeable cables: When using a PS/2 wedge (pass-thru) cable, it sat between the keyboard and the computer and passed data as a standard keyboard, no drivers required and OS-agnostic. When using a USB cable, it functioned as an HID device, and required only the standard Windows HID keyboard driver. Scanning would send data as an HID keyboard input. In both cases, it was transparent to any program we were using (a simple terminal emulator, in our case), but we did need to scan a configuration code out of the manual each time we changed cable types.

yeah, the scanners tend to be pretty simplistic ... they usually just send the scanned barcode values straight through ... actually, you'd be surprised how many of these things are runnnig Linux themselves ... some of them you can hijack, but once you get past the novelty of it, the device isnt terribly useful without their application ... -mike _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug