[Wlug] Seeking help with a USB barcode scanner

[Brian J. Conway]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:16:00 -0400
Andy Stewart <andystewart at comcast.net> wrote:

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> 
> HI everybody,
> 
> Does anybody in the group have any experience using a USB barcode
> scanner with Linux?  Its tough to google for "barcode scanner" since
> each term brings up its own set of things which aren't what I seek.
> 
> In particular, I have been loaned a USB barcode scanner which is made by
> PSC, Inc. with model number QS2500.  When I plug it into my laptop, the
> USB vendor and device IDs are 04B4:0101.  I looked this up on the Linux
> USB devices website and it has multiple references (mostly to USB
> keyboards).
> 
> I think this device is being handled as a USB HID device, but I'm not
> certain.
> 
> I'm wondering if Linux has any software that would read the value from a
> barcode scanner and do something with it.  If I knew which device file
> was used, maybe I could "cat <devfile>" and see some output when I
> scanned a barcode.
> 
> Note that there are several examples of software for printing barcodes,
> but that's not what I need (at least not yet).
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Andy

We used similar devices extensively in our wafer fab at my old job (hi
Mike), though not under Linux more than a couple times as my desk.  Since
my experience is only partially relevant, I can offer a few words as a
start.  The scanners we used had interchangeable cables: When using a PS/2
wedge (pass-thru) cable, it sat between the keyboard and the computer and
passed data as a standard keyboard, no drivers required and OS-agnostic. 
When using a USB cable, it functioned as an HID device, and required only
the standard Windows HID keyboard driver.  Scanning would send data as an
HID keyboard input.  In both cases, it was transparent to any program we
were using (a simple terminal emulator, in our case), but we did need to
scan a configuration code out of the manual each time we changed cable
types.

Brian J. Conway