Parts and Designs
Literally any PC running Windows 2000 or later with an Internet connection will do for the Anything Inventory, although substantially more memory than the minimum for Windows is a good idea for large inventories. In its simplest form, all the hardware you need for the Anything Inventory beyond the PC (and its Internet connection) is a barcode scanner. The barcode scanner hardware we used, called a CueCat (Figure 6-6), works reasonably well and is widely sold on eBay for $5–$10. The scanners were available in both keyboard serial port and USB versions, and were originally given away for free (RadioShack had them). Figure 6 shows a serial port version; the dark square at the cat’s mouth is the scanning aperture.
FIGURE 6: CueCat barcode scanner
Sadly, the scanners were free as in free lunch — neither one worked out too well. CueCats were originally produced by a deservedly defunct company called Digital Convergence, whose plan was to give the CueCats away, but then relay everything you scanned back to their servers. Using that information to gauge your buying habits, they expected to make money through the universally popular idea of targeted marketing campaigns. Not that they told you that was the plan, they just had you install their spyware software and assumed all would be well.