Reading Software Technology

we have a barcode reader that reads a barcode.we need to connect this reader to PC so that it displays the information in barcode on PC screen.what technology can we use?Is there any readymade s/w for this..
plzzzz help.

Well it depends on the interface of the barcode scanner. Most barcode scanners interface with a PS2 wedge or a USB cord. If you have the PS2 wedge then you will need to also plug in a PS2 keyboard into the other side of the connector and then plug the whole unit into a PS2 port.

If it's a USB barcode scanner simply plug it into a USB port.

Most barcode scanners emulate a keyboard so when you scan a barcode it reads the characters and then shoots the data to the computer like a keyboard quickly pressing the right keys. Most barcode scanners you can scan into any application that accepts keyboard typing. Notepad, Yahoo Messenger, Word etc etc etc.

2008-03-12 04:57:28 by aquest

A brief look at how scanning and reading software is being used by the blind and visually impaired students at the Florida School for the Deaf and ...

Hi,

I am interested in developing a electronic dictionary or e-dictionary.
Would like to know what are the tools used to develop for web based dictionary. How to store all the dictionary data (database?)

Suggest software, technology, reading materials, ref links. Thanks in advance.

Hai ,

It's a great idea dude ,But atleast you need a sample piece to make a model .am I right you can get a variety of electronic dictionaries and software from the website:http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/ectaco/ surely it will help you ........

2009-02-18 00:32:26 by madhanaraj k

Price: $41.00

Handy - mini size
Guaranteed - five year warranty
Its handy, mini size.

I want to know how bar code reader software is connected to the hardware and how software works to give us the reading. What sort of technology or language it uses to read the bar code and how it stores data in PC ?

There are currently four different types of bar code readers available. Each uses a slightly different technology for reading and decoding a bar code. There are pen type readers (e.g. bar code wands), laser scanners, CCD readers and camera-based readers.
Pen Type Readers and Laser Scanners
Pen type readers consist of a light source and a photo diode that are placed next to each other in the tip of a pen or wand. To read a bar code, you drag the tip of the pen across all the bars in a steady even motion. The photo diode measures the intensity of the light reflected back from the light source and generates a waveform that is used to measure the widths of the bars and spaces in the bar code. Dark bars in the bar code absorb light and white spaces reflect light so that the voltage waveform generated by the photo diode is an exact duplicate of the bar and space pattern in the bar code. This waveform is decoded by the scanner in a manner similar to the way Morse code dots and dashes are decoded.
Laser scanners work the same way as pen type readers except that they use a laser beam as the light source and typically employ either a reciprocating mirror or a rotating prism to scan the laser beam back and forth across the bar code. Just the same as with the pen type reader, a photo diode is used to measure the intensity of the light reflected back from the bar code. In both pen readers and laser scanners, the light emitted by the reader is tuned to a specific frequency and the photo diode is designed to detect only this same frequency light.
Pen type readers and laser scanners can be purchased with different resolutions to enable them to read bar codes of different sizes. The scanner resolution is measured by the size of the dot of light emitted by the reader. The dot of light should be equal to or slightly smaller than the narrowest element width ("X" dimension). If the dot is wider than the width of the narrowest bar or space, then the dot will overlap two or more bars at a time thereby causing the scanner to not be able to distinguish clear transitions between bars and spaces. If the dot is too small, then any spots or voids in the bars can be misinterpreted as light areas also making a bar code unreadable. The most commonly used X dimension is 13 mils (roughly 4 printer dots on a 300 DPI printer). Because this X dimension is so small, it is extremely important that the bar code is created with a program that creates high resolution graphics (like B-Coder).
CCD Readers
CCD (Charge Coupled Device) readers use an array of hundreds of tiny light sensors lined up in a row in the head of the reader. Each sensor can be thought of as a single photo diode that measures the intensity of the light immediately in front of it. Each individual light sensor in the CCD reader is extremely small and because there are hundreds of sensors lined up in a row, a voltage pattern identical to the pattern in a bar code is generated in the reader by sequentially measuring the voltages across each sensor in the row. The important difference between a CCD reader and a pen or laser scanner is that the CCD reader is measuring emitted ambient light from the bar code whereas pen or laser scanners are measuring reflected light of a specific frequency originating from the scanner itself.

Camera-Based Readers
The fourth and newest type of bar code reader currently available are camera-based readers that use a small video camera to capture an image of a bar code. The reader then uses sophisticated digital image processing techniques to decode the bar code. Video cameras use the same CCD technology as in a CCD bar code reader except that instead of having a single row of sensors, a video camera has hundreds of rows of sensors arranged in a two dimensional array so that they can generate an image.

The factors that make a bar code readable are: an adequate print contrast between the light and dark bars and having all bar and space dimensions within the tolerances for the symbology. It is also helpful to have sharp bar edges, few or no spots or voids, a smooth surface and clear margins or "quiet zones" at either end of the printed symbol.

Interfacing a bar code reader to a PC
All application programs support bar code reading as long as you have the right equipment. Bar code readers are available with two types of output - either "keyboard wedge" output or RS232 output. The bar code readers with keyboard wedge output plug directly into the keyboard port on your PC and they also provide a pigtail connector so that you can plug in your keyboard at the same time. When you scan a bar code with the keyboard wedge bar code reader, the data goes into the computer just as if it were typed in on the keyboard. This makes it extremely easy to interface the bar code reader to any application that is written to accept keyboard data.

The keyboard wedge interface is extremely simple however it has a few drawbacks. If you swipe a bar code, the cursor has to be in the correct input field in the correct application otherwise you end up reading bar code data into whatever application has the focus. This can cause all sorts of potential problems as you can imagine. The keyboard output also is limited in that you cannot modify the data in any way before sending it into the program that is to receive the data. For example, if you needed to parse a bar code message into multiple pieces or remove some of a bar code message or add in a date or time stamp you would not be able to with a normal keyboard wedge reader.

The other possible output option is to get a bar code reader with an RS232 or "Serial" interface. With these types of bar code readers, you connect the reader to an available serial port on the back of your PC. You would then need a program called a "Software Wedge" to take the data from the bar code reader and feed it to the application where you want the data to go. The disadvantage to this approach is that it is a little more complex however you gain much more control over how and where your data ends up when you read a bar code.

Our WinWedge product line is designed just for this purpose. WinWedge is an executable program that can pass serial data back and forth to other programs using either DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) or by converting incoming serial data to keystrokes (i.e. it stuffs the keyboard buffer with the incoming serial data). With WinWedge, you can control exactly where the data goes in the target application and you can also perform all sorts of modifications on the data before it is sent to the application including parsing or translating the data as well as adding additional keystrokes or date and time stamps to the data.

WinWedge is extremely easy to use and is designed to have you up and running sending and receiving serial data directly from within your application in just a few minutes. Because WinWedge can pass data using DDE, you can set your application up to insure that the bar code data always goes where it is supposed to go and you can also have your application running in the background and still accept bar code input while you run some other program in the foreground. WinWedge is without question the most robust way to interface a bar code reader to a PC with the least amount of effort.

2006-08-17 02:29:55 by markfraser

Price: $30.99 $10.99

READER, KINGSTON USB 2.0 19-IN-1
Support for: MMCmobile, SD, SDHC, MMC, MMCplus, RS-MMC; MiniSD,miniSDHC; microSD, microSDHC; MMCmicro; CF Type I and II, Microdrive; MemoryStick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro Duo; MemoryStick Micro (M2)
Operating System Compatibility Windows 2000 (SP3 and above), XP (SP1 and above) and VistaTM; Mac OS 10.x and above

Hi

i am a IT student and i enjoy watching various technology related clips, i was wondering if any anone could suggest any sites wherre i can watchthese clips, they could be about the introduction of new technologies, anything It related, and not just video clips but reading material would also be suitabe.

Thanks in advance

You can find a lot on http://youtube.com/

:)

2008-10-29 16:27:09 by Zebra Z

and then going on to MIT to study either Chemical Engineering or Nuclear Engineering and Sciences. What books can I read and learn right now so by the time I start my masterss degree I already know basically everything in the above mentioned fields or atleat the majority of it, like the ground work, so that by then it will be a breeze?

Also, tell me where I can get the books.

At least in the Nuclear Science and Engineering program, a master's degree hinges on original research... there is no possible way to read textbooks in the field and come out such that writing an original thesis in such serious sciences is 'a breeze'.

MIT is a really good school, with highly competitive admissions: the requirements for Chem. E. Master's include "Top grades in chemical engineering required, demonstrating ability of students to perform at the highest level" and "Must have had extensive undergraduate course experience in chemical engineering, particularly, thermodynamics, kinetics and reactor design, and fluid mechanics and transport". I seriously doubt your undergraduate plan adequately prepares you for Master's work in these fields at MIT... I suggest you either major in the field you're eventually planning to pursue, as a mastery of computers is much less important than good recommendations from professors in the field who believe you have real research potential, or that you lower your sights from such lofty goals.

2009-02-02 16:52:52 by Gggg G