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I didn't send the number. It sent a (base64, IIRC) encoded version of the barcode, along with a serial number for tracking purposes. It was fairly quickly reverse engineered, but never quite as simple as some of the contemporary barcode scanners that just entered raw numbers.

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IIRC there was a trivial short to disable the b64 and ID. That and installing a power switch was my first ever real soldering project.

Yeah, exactly. I was puzzled about the talk of Windows-only and hacked software. I soldered on a jumper wire (with a slide switch to easily revert back if needed) and used it as a barcode reader in FreeBSD.

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