Anyone work on the software side of POS barcode scanners?

[Landlord]

Hi,

I've just bought a job-lot of POS hardware and I'm just in the process of getting my head around how it works. One of the items is a Metrologic MS9520-47 barcode scanner with the Keyboard Wedge interface.

All of the information I've found out on the web uses the RS-232 serial interface version and, as such, isn't any use to me (that I can ascertain). The scanner works and I currently have a scanned barcode in the buffer waiting for transmission (the LED's lead to me to believe this is the case!). But I don't know how to initiate that transfer. I'm assuming I need to peek the scanner buffer, but how?! Is it an extension of the keyboard buffer?

I'm going to be using VB6 - I don't know C++ or the like, but I'm competent with API's if that's how it's done.

Also, I assume the OPOS Driver is a COM wrapper around the serial port control... is that correct? That is, it's of no direct use to me at the moment?

I'm not holding out much hope of anyone knowing this but fingers crossed!!

Cheers,
Phil.

[Big_Dan]

The keynboard wedge bit just means that it plugs into the keyboard port on your PC, then there is a new socket to plug a keyboard on to the scanner.

[pdV6]

As an experiment, open up a blank notepad document and ensure it has the focus.

Then scan a barcode.

My bet is that the decoded character string appears in notepad as if you typed it from the keyboard.

[Russ35]

As the others have said, if its a keyboard interface it should just pass the data as if its typed on the keyboard. I do the same with my software (but I work with swipe cards readers instead of bar code readers). You should just need to place a text field on a form with the focus.

If RS-232 then it can start to get fiddly depending on the spec used by the reader.

[Landlord]

pdV6 said:

As an experiment, open up a blank notepad document and ensure it has the focus.

Then scan a barcode.

My bet is that the decoded character string appears in notepad as if you typed it from the keyboard.

That's what I thought and I'd tried that, albeit in Excel and nothing...
just tried it in Notepad and the same, nothing. It's as if the scanner is waiting for a hand-shake of some sort. I guess I'll need to take a look in to those options...