[Sussex] Barcode scanning and EPOS

[Geoff Teale]

On Thu, 2004-01-22 at 16:19, dominic.clay at btopenworld.com wrote:
> Geoff,
> 
> Thanks for the info. It would be great to use a Linux EPOS.

..if only because it would be the cheapest solution ;)

> It is all very new to me.  

Everything is once.

> I dont know much (read anything!) about this stuff.  

Fair enough.

> A barcode scanner is absolutely vital to me as fine tuned stock 
> control on 'sale or return' goods will  make or break me!

A barcode scanner is nothing without a database behind it.  Most of the
cheaper barcode scanners are either PS/2 or USB.  PS/2 ones are the
easiest to setup - you just plug them in between your keyboard and your
PC and they type data in wherever you would normally type - I've
personally got three different types of these scanners sitting about 6
feet from my desk at work and I can tell you that all barcode scanners
are _not_ created equal.
 
> Do you have to create your  own bar 'codes' or are they all standard?  
> I have seen kbarcode. I'll have to look into all this!

KBarcode is AFAIK just a front end to GNU Barcode - GNU Barcode is great
so long as your printer is capable or printing it's output with aliasing
errors (as any variance in the ratio of black to white results in an
unscannable barcode).

The cheapest barcode printing solutions are one of the following:

1/ 
Use GNU barcode to print barcodes onto sheets of sticky labels on a
normal high-res printer.

2/
Use custom printer driver code to produce un-aliased output on a cheap
(low-res) label printer.

... at Cmed we do the latter (though this decision is based on form
factor and power consumption).

I can help you out with either.  If you're interested in the latter I
can recommend the brother P-Touch 2420PC printer because:

- it's very cheap, but very reliable.
- It's proved that it can do this job many times over.
- I have one here that I can show you ;)
- I can help you out with working source code.
- They guy who wrote the CUPS drivers (see http://www.tealeg.uklinux.net
) is really an OK guy, ugly as a baboon but that's beside the point ;)

-- 
Geoff Teale
general: <tealeg at member.fsf.org>
home   : <geoff at tealeg.uklinux.net>
work   : <gteale at cmedltd.com>
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