Unless I am mistaken, Jake is looking for a barcode scanner. These
are typically not SCSI devices (none that I know of are, at least),
they are typically Serial, PS/2, or USB HID devices. All they do is
translate the barcode scanned into ASCII for processing by some
application. Some newer scanners use Bluetooth, but there are also
cordless scanners that talk to a base station that translates the
wireless signal into serial, PS/2 or USB input.
I can say with 100% certainty (I have one in front of me, ATM) that
the Symbol LS1203 works with no problems with OpenBSD. Here is what
dmesg reports when I attach the scanner.
uhidev1 at uhub4 port 1 configuration 1 interface 0 "?Symbol
Technologies, Inc, 2002 Symbol Bar Code Scanner" rev 2.00/2.01 addr 2
uhidev1: iclass 3/1
ukbd1 at uhidev1: 8 modifier keys, 6 key codes, country code 33
wskbd2 at ukbd1 mux 1
wskbd2: connecting to wsdisplay0
As you can see, there is no SCSI black magic or any proprietary voodoo
going on here. The scanner is simply detected as a USB keyboard, and
acts just like one in my day to day use of it.
Tim Donahue
Quoting Predrag Punosevac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Jacob Yocom-Piatt wrote:
Dear Jacob,
That is very interesting question. I was always wondering myself if
it is possible to use those bar code scanners with OpenBSD.
Anyhow, this is what I found.
Obviously bar code scanners work completely differently than
Image scanners which are supported by sane-backends
http://www.sane-project.org/old-archive/2001-06/0111.html
The second thing I found is that they are not very hard for hacking
as they are essentially simple SCSI device. Somebody started
project in 2000
http://sourceforge.net/projects/uscan/
but never finished. It looks like people have been sued over those
drivers as it looks to me that those scanners are very lucrative
proprietary market.
Finally, it looks that might be a very simple hardware solution for you
http://www.readerware.com/rwbarcodespec.html
Look at on the bottom of the page. There is bunch of scanners that
should just work with OpenBSD. How? It looks to me that when you scan
the bar code this bar code gets memorized by the device and you can
mount device memory as SCSI drive or download via the network.
Sort of like USB memory stick or Digital camera.
I have not looked things very carefully so I might be very wrong.
I am really curious if you really get those things to work with Open.
Please keep me posted.
Most Kind Regards,
Predrag
does anyone on list know if wireless (e.g. bluetooth) barcode
scanners can or do work with openbsd? couldn't find much
information about it after searching.
the application is inventory tracking, etc, where several users
would concurrently scan and have barcodes register with a single
machine. if the devices simply spit out the barcodes over
bluetooth, i expect there is a way to achieve this.
cheers,
jake
--
Tim Donahue
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