I thank you in advance for your interest and your help. Please read on forward for my remarks. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jan-Erik Soderholm" To: Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 3:42 AM > A "Keyboard-wedge" emulates the type of keyboard it was designed > for. > If designed to be connected to a PC, it emulates the PC-kbd- > scan codes, so the keyboard driver in e.g. Windows "sees" normal > ASCII charactes. The wedge is connected between the normal PC- > keyboard and the keyboard input on the PC box. There is absolutly > *NO* reason to use a PC-kbd-wedge if you *don't* have a PC (or > some other equipment that expects PC-kbd-scan-codes). > Use a "stright" RS-232, ASCII output scanner, no need to decode > anything, just read and act on the data. I would like to reserve the pic's async package for RS232 to communicate final results to a PC. > You say "decode bar code to ASCII". What exactly do you > mean with "bar code" in this case. The actual digital stream from > the reader (before the decoder) ? I hope not ! no, not al all! (make code, break code) I have to research, but didn't think that a PC's keyboard such as an AT offered raw ASCII. (I would therfore decode the scanner's keyboard type scan codes to ASCII) > Well, if you aren't > building some equipment for quality checking of barcode labels where > you have to measure that, e.g, a Code-31 label are within spec. I will research this fact, tx. Does the wand's built in scan decoder to this? I really need various scanner spec's. I will try to get spec's on this for example. http://tomshardware.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/details__cat_id--42 2,prod_id--6231104,name--Informatics%20Wasp%20Wasp%20CCD%20Scanner.html > What types of barcodes are you planning to use ? > Only standard 1-D codes such as code-31 or code-128 ? > Or also 2-D codes such as PDF-417 ?. It doesn't matter that > much, just interested... This is a new project so the bar code type(s) has not been submitted to me yet. (no pdf stuff) > Is it the "piece of equipment that reads bar code" that will > conntain the PIC ? Or is it the "application" ? And what is the > "computer". A PC ? Or some *real* computer ? The wand assembly will be interfaced to the pic-hand-held assembly. The PC could be remote. > How will the termal printer be controled ? By the PIC ? > And all this other "peripherals", will they be peripherals to > the PIC ? Yes, also the printer has a 16k buffer. I have pic usart code to send a 16KB file, which I may have to be convert somehow to support a parallel printer. I don't want to, but I could multiplex the pic's serial package to go the printer's serial interface. Any thoughts on memory card sticks (credit card size) for data logging similar to PCMIA or other type? As always, your feedback is much appreciated. {slewrate} -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads