>
>Maybe I simply don't understand how a "good" barcode reader works.  The way
>I see it, if you have an image sensor, you can pick a single pixel and get
>a data stream similar to what you'd get from the sensor in a cheap reader,
>with the additional pixels being useful (or not) for at least user feedback.

I've never tried it with a CCD, but I'd like to.

I've achieved nearly 100% (99+) with badly distorted codes using barcode
wands that output only "light-dark" information.  For each symbology,
there's a theoretical limit to  the amount of distortion that you can have,
and I'm right up against that in UPC/EAN. Other codes aren't so well
constructed, and so are not capable of achieving such high read rates.

In my Z8 version, I decode the chars literally as they come in, the AVR
version buffers the scan and post-processes. Neither is a really long
process. It's a bit tricky, but on any reasonable platform it's fast.
--
Where's dave? http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?kc6ete-9

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different
ways.  See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.