Yup, I meant the barcode scanners. This time, I write about how do the barcodes and barcode scanners work.
The Usage of Barcodes
The barcodes are really useful when you run a busy store and you need to keep track all of things you sell, so your customers will always find the ones that they want to buy are in stock. Okay, if you said you don’t need the barcodes, you can write it down one by one what is your customers buy, then you will need more than an employee as cashier. In other case, maybe you run a grocery store or kind of a big store that has a thousands of items to sell, would you write it one by one? if you ask my opinion, I would rather to buy a barcode scanner, and a barcode label printer (if your items still do not have barcode labels from its factory) than write the items one by one or recruit a new employee.
How The Barcodes Represent The Numbers
A barcode is really a simple way to classify your items by give them each, a number or an identity. Why should use the barcodes? Why doesn’t use just decimal numbers, 0-9? Because it is more complicated for computer to read decimal numbers and it have more error risk (for example, a misprinted eight look like a three to computer, while six is look like nine if it is turned upside down). So here are the barcodes that represent numbers 0-9.
How Do Barcode Scanners Work
It really useless if we have the barcodes without gadget to read them, so that’s what a barcode scanner are made for.
These are the technologies of barcode scanner you may get in the market commonly:
Pen Scanner
This scanner shine red LED light onto black and white barcode stripes and then identify the pattern of reflected light with a string of photodiodes.
Laser Scanner
For a bigger store it is recommended to use this kind of scanner, basically laser scanners work the same way as pen-type scanners, except the light source that they used, they use the laser not LED.
Video Camera Scanner
These scanners use a video camera to capture the stripes of the barcode than the computer determine the pattern of black and white bars into a number. Video Camera Scanners is more accurate than Laser and Pen Scanners.
The other gadget that you may need is Barcode Printer Label, if your items still do not have barcode labels from its factory, you can use this gadget to print the barcode labels of your items before you display them.