Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 14:49:45 -0800 From: Kent Stewart <kstewart@3-cities.com> To: Ken <webweaver@rmci.net> Cc: Troy Settle <troy@picus.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Bar Code Scanning Message-ID: <38936E89.F44572A6@3-cities.com> References: <NDBBLOMCGLFPEPCPJEKKIEBOCAAA.troy@picus.com> <4.2.0.58.20000129134504.00b6ecb0@mail.rmci.net>
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Ken wrote: > > At 11:54 AM 1/29/2000 -0800, Kent Stewart wrote: > > >Troy Settle wrote: > > > > > > Get a scanner that plugs inline with the keyboard. The scanner then sends > > > text to the keyboard buffer. FreeBSD won't give a hoot that it's > > scanned or > > > typed. > > > >This is definitely the easy way. However, these bar code scanners are <snip> > >The ones I have used and programmed around were usually associated > >with the serial port, use lasers, have a button or trigger to start > >the scan, and read without touching the bar code like most of the > > A bit more detail; what I'd like to be able to do is setup a scanner w/FBSD > that udates inventory in a MySQL database. I'm not a C/C+ coder, but am > familiar with Perl. These scanners are really primative tools. How are you going to do your inventory? If you are talking POS, there are products that do that but I have never been involved with anything like that. Walking around and doing inventory is much more involved because you walk around and accrue data and then you go back to a place where you can download the information and update the database. The walk around units are not cheap. They frequently come with developer kits that may not of any value to FreeBSD. Linux is gaining in popularity and they provide tools for that environment. With networking it doesn't matter where you process the data because the database doesn't have to be on the computer that scanned the barcode. The hardest part of your project is probably getting the inventory setup. If your inventory doesn't have barcodes on it, you have to create the barcode for the inventory. There are a number of printers that create a barcode label. The simple barcodes do upper case letters and numbers. You want to be able to correctly read them even if the are upside down. The printers I have experience with used a thermal process and the labels were printed on crack_and_peel material. You send the printer a text string with commands and it prints the label, spools it, and then cuts the finished label off. The printed labels are more fragil than an all plastic sticker that has a bar code embedded in the plastic. I had a friend add barcodes to her book store and the data entry part ran around 20% errors. The errors after you have an inventory is different because if the barcode isn't in the database, you assume you read it wrong and are told to reread the barcode. You could also have an original data entry error and have to allow for it. It is much nicer if the program creating and printing the new label also adds the barcode to the inventory database. It may be wrong but it is at least consistent. The next is dealing with the inventory. You either have to find a program that will do your inventory or you have create a program in pearl or whatever that does the SQL to actually use the DB. I've never used Pearl to do SQL but have been told that is both easier and slower. The advantage is that you wouldn't have to learn C/C++. The disadvantage is that you may have to do some of the raw functions on your own. Each barcode scanner is different. Some just send a text string out the serial line everytime it reads a barcode. This style was a problem if there was any chance of the laser touching a different barcode than the one you wanted the system to process. There wasn't an OOP's button :). Writing a program from scratch can also be difficult. Carrying every part to your computer to use a scanner on the keyboard to do the inventory may not be convenient :). Using the FreeBSD system to maintain the database is relatively trivial compared to actually using it. There may be products out there that do some of this using FreeBSD. We didn't use FreeBSD and I haven't been involved with it since I started using FreeBSD. I have always felt that limiting your self to a product that only runs on X system can be expensive as you work around a bad choice. Most of our stuff was original such as barcodes that were laser etched into material such as endcaps that were later welded onto Ziralloy tubing. Every item in the plant had a barcode on it and this includes boats that carried soft raw material thru a high temperature furnace to convert the soft oxide into a hard form of ceramics. The boats could come out of the furnace hot enough to melt a simple wand scanner. I think there was a cooldown section for safety reasons but they were still very hot when they came out through the furnace door. Each item could be followed through manufacturing because of the presence of the barcode and barcode readers. Canned products never seemed to go beyond printing the barcode for soft materials such as boxes and etc. and reading the barcode. Doing something with the barcode was left up to you. The really good Oracle tools only seem to run on some form of Windows. There is something that runs on FreeBSD but I haven't used it. Doing manual SQL database design and development can be really bad at times. YMMV Kent -- Kent Stewart Richland, WA mailto:kstewart@3-cities.com http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html http://daily.daemonnews.org/ SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @ Home http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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