Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

SnowDog · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 312 Location: Manitoba Canada

Here's one for the way more techies than me...

There's these little barcode scanners called CueCat (they actually look like a cat...bummer, not a puppy ) that Radio Shack used to give away...I have a few of them (USB models), for which I have linux drivers, but I don't have a clue what to do with them to make it work in puppy.

These scanners were passed out with software (that required the owner to register) from a company called Digital Convergence, (long since out of business...bla bla bla), anyway, they can still be found via e-bay, lots of peoples junk drawers, etc for next to nothing.

I thought that since puppy breeds new life into old systems it would be cool if it did the same for the Cat....besides I think if a Puppy could teach a Cat to do something useful....that would be a really neat puppy trick.

But, I don't have the skills to do it.

Anyone know what would be involved in making this possible Question

Flash · Posted: Fri 13 Jan 2006, 00:32 Post subject:

So, you want to make a Cat Scanner? Laughing

It would help if you find the Linux program on the CD and tell us how big it is and what file extensions it has, e.g., rpm, tar.gz, etc..

SnowDog · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 312 Location: Manitoba Canada

Cat Scanner....MWahahaha...
The file I have is...
Name: cuecat-0.8.2.tar.gz
Size: 293 k
I could send it if you wanna have a peek inside.
Thanks

Flash · Posted: Fri 13 Jan 2006, 10:34 Post subject:

You have several options. I don't know if that's source code but if it is you could try this program for compiling source tarballs into dotpups.

SnowDog · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 312 Location: Manitoba Canada

I grabbed that program but now i need some other compiling stuff that it complained about...I'll run it again when I have more time & go find the extras & give it a whirl.
Thanks

Guest · Guest

I'm using a Modified USB CueCat with Puppy. The modification converts the scanner to a standard barcode reader so no special decrypting software is needed. I set up Puppy to use a USB keyboard (HID) and CueCat worked without any other configuration. A search of Ebay for "modified USB Cuecat" will show many available.

SnowDog · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 312 Location: Manitoba Canada

Thanks for the input.

I really don't need this thing for anything, I just happen to know there are lots of them lying around so I thought it would be good to know if they'd work as is with Puppy. People might get a kick out of being able to organize wine or book collections or whatever by scanner for a dollar or so.

I played with the compiling a dot-pup from the drivers I found, but since I really have no clue what I'm doing, I didn't get too far.
Your post made me wonder though....anyone know how to modify one of these usb ones so it works like yours?

I would not think there'd be much to it (since it's such a simple device) but who knows?...I could be asking someone to re-invent the wheel.