Seeking help with a USB barcode scanner
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI everybody, Does anybody in the group have any experience using a USB barcode scanner with Linux? Its tough to google for "barcode scanner" since each term brings up its own set of things which aren't what I seek. In particular, I have been loaned a USB barcode scanner which is made by PSC, Inc. with model number QS2500. When I plug it into my laptop, the USB vendor and device IDs are 04B4:0101. I looked this up on the Linux USB devices website and it has multiple references (mostly to USB keyboards). I think this device is being handled as a USB HID device, but I'm not certain. I'm wondering if Linux has any software that would read the value from a barcode scanner and do something with it. If I knew which device file was used, maybe I could "cat <devfile>" and see some output when I scanned a barcode. Note that there are several examples of software for printing barcodes, but that's not what I need (at least not yet). Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group (http://www.wlug.org) Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group (http://linux.meetup.com/393) Amateur Radio: KB1OIQ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGDcRgHl0iXDssISsRAjF2AJ98hr6d4i2EMSQ5AvAWiiyfPLHdWACeLSm+ uCN6IcuTTYvDZbz44z+t4I4= =gdbi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:16:00 -0400 Andy Stewart <andystewart@comcast.net> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
HI everybody,
Does anybody in the group have any experience using a USB barcode scanner with Linux? Its tough to google for "barcode scanner" since each term brings up its own set of things which aren't what I seek.
In particular, I have been loaned a USB barcode scanner which is made by PSC, Inc. with model number QS2500. When I plug it into my laptop, the USB vendor and device IDs are 04B4:0101. I looked this up on the Linux USB devices website and it has multiple references (mostly to USB keyboards).
I think this device is being handled as a USB HID device, but I'm not certain.
I'm wondering if Linux has any software that would read the value from a barcode scanner and do something with it. If I knew which device file was used, maybe I could "cat <devfile>" and see some output when I scanned a barcode.
Note that there are several examples of software for printing barcodes, but that's not what I need (at least not yet).
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Andy
We used similar devices extensively in our wafer fab at my old job (hi Mike), 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. Brian J. Conway
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
participants (3)
-
Andy Stewart -
Brian J. Conway -
Mike Frysinger