[Advanced-java] barcoding system.

[Joel A. Thompson]

Shawn,

Thanks for your reply... I suppose I could just wrap some OS command 
lines in Java as well.

Can you recommend a good/low-cost barcode reader?

-Joel
Crane, Shawn R (N-MAXIM Group) wrote:

>Joel,
>
>I haven't used Java for bar codes, but I have used other languages and
>basically what you want to do is get a reader that has a serial interface.
>Then plug it into the serial port and either send commands to it or read bar
>codes as just plain ASCII commands.  The ones I've seen have a simple ASCII
>interface that you can use; basically they send the bar code when they read
>it if you set them up for fully automatic, or you can send a command to tell
>them when to read.  It all depends on the model for what the command syntax
>and setup procedures are.
>
>It's been a few years since I worked with them, but they shouldn't be
>substantially different now.
>
>As far as using Java, I've used the Java serial interface package on
>Windows, and it worked great.  It's easy to read and write with it, so it
>should work great for bar codes.
>
>The hard part isn't the code, but configuring the bar code reader correctly
>and getting someone to mount it properly (these were industrial applications
>so they were supposed to work fully automatically).
>
>Good luck!
>
>Shawn R. Crane
>shawn.r.crane@lmco.com
>(618) 628-3195
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Joel Thompson [mailto:joel@rhinosystemsinc.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 1:11 AM
>To: advanced-java@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu
>Cc: joel@rhinosystemsinc.com
>Subject: [Advanced-java] barcoding system.
>
>
>I would like to know if anyone can recommend a
>simple (hopefully inexpensive, but not necessarily)
>barcode reader that I can attach to a parallel,
>serial, or usb port of a Windows (or LINUX) machine
>and use a Java API (is there one? I am sure there has to be) to read
>barcode labels, and deliver me an ID.
>
>Another part of this equation is to somehow get the
>barcodes (can you buy sheets of barcodes that you can
>just peel off and paste on the object you want to
>track?). Then I'd run the reader over the label, and
>assign my object to that ID.  Can you buy such labels and
>will they work with any barcode reader?
>
>I would be interacting with a database, obviously to
>store all the object information, that I want to
>track (by barcode ID).
>
>Thanks,
>Joel
>
>
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