It's spring cleaning time!
Okay, so I'm either 6 months early, or 6 months late... Either way, it's time to make more room at the joechiu compound. My loss is your gain!
See what's for sale in the joechiu.com junk closet... |
 BC-Scan
Internet's original free barcode decoder software.
Read Code 39 and Interleaved 2 of 5 barcodes with your PC!
BC-Scan FAQ:
How do I hookup the barcode wand to my PC?
Generally speaking, a TTL wand will have three wires: power, ground, and signal. To hook up your wand to your PC, you must make sure that the wand is compatible with the PC's 5 volt power supply. Hook up your wand according to the following diagram:
How do I connect the 5-pin connector to my PC? It looks like a keyboard connector, but the pins are spaced differently?
The HP barcode wands (and some non-HP wands with equivalent pinout) use a 5-pin 240° DIN connector for easy attachment of barcode wands to decoder boxes. The following pinout is what you typically find with these 5 pin connectors (available from 1-800-Mouser, Mouser Part #502-61GB5F. About $3.00):
NOTICE: For the HP HBCS barcode wand, you may need a pull-up resistor to make the output signal TTL compatible. You would typically do this with a 4.7K ohm resistor wired between the output pin and the +5V pin.
When I scan, it keeps detecting an unknown barcode.
First, make sure the barcode you are trying to scan is Code 39 or Interleaved 2 of 5. Second, your pen-scanning may not be smooth enough for the decoder. Try to scan the barcode in one, smooth, constant-speed motion. It helps if you start your scanning about 3/4" away from the starting edge of the barcode. (Of course, if there is not enough quiet space, you may need to be much closer.)
I used a TrueType (or PostScript) Code 39 font, but the Barcode Decoder doesn't recognize the barcode.
First, make sure that the font size is large enough. The unit-width of the narrow bars shoud be at least 1/32" of an inch for most wands. 1/16" works even better.
Second, make sure you have the start/stop character in your code. i.e., you should be using *1234ABC* not 1234ABC. (The asterisk is used for the start/stop symbol in most implementation of Code39 font libraries.)
Finally, make sure you have a good barcode. One particular TrueType Code39 font doesn't work on my system. It looks like a good barcode, but closer inspection shows that it is gibberish.
The program doesn't seem to scan the barcodes on store-purchased goods.
Supermarket barcodes are actually UPC barcodes which are a different symbology than Code39 or Interleaved 2 of 5. The current version of the Barcode Decoder does not support UPC.
No matter what I do, it still doesn't work
Tell me what you've tried, and tell me how you're trying it. I'll try to answer as much e-mail as possible.
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