John Pickering - 8 July, 1999
Re: Barcodes on insect specimens
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 16:34:18 -0400
To: "John T. Longino"
From: pick@pick.uga.edu (John Pickering)
Subject: Re: Barcodes on insect specimens
Cc: sackley@compuserve.com, ashe@falcon.cc.ukans.edu, brianb@mizar.usc.edu,
colwell@uconnvm.uconn.edu, christine.deal@intermec.com,
faulzeitler@ascoll.org, Furth.David@NMNH.SI.EDU,
whallwac@sas.upenn.edu, djanzen@sas.upenn.edu, Johnson.2@osu.edu,
mkaspari@ou.edu, scottm@bishop.bishop.hawaii.org,
becky_nichols@nps.gov, Chuck_Parker@nps.gov, msharkey@byron.ca.uky.edu,
cthompso@sel.barc.usda.gov, jugalde@euclea.inbio.ac.cr,
pin93001@uconnvm.uconn.edu, windsord@tivoli.si.edu,
faulzeitler@ascoll.org
Jack,
Some mis-conceptions need to be cleared up.
(1) Code 49 is an industry standard. It is not (and may never have been)
proprietary to Intermec. Intermec invented it. It is my understanding from
Sprague that we can purchase printers from other companies to print code 49
labels, for example. I don't know about readers.
(2) Code 128 simply does not pack in enough information in the space
available that we need. It is not the way to go. It may read more easily
than your existing 3-stack code 49 labels, but so do my 2-stack labels.
Hence, my reluctance to scan all your rogadines. Picking up each specimen
is your greatest handicap. Put the barcode labels face up! From all the
information that is available to me now, I think that INBio will make a
huge mistake is it goes with code 128 for its insect labels.
Furthermore, the new "imager" technology is far superior than than the old
laser scanners that we are now using. It works like a digital camera and
should speed reading code 49 labels considerably, even the 3-stack ones
that INBio and you are using. No more trying to line up each stack
perfectly.
(3) Sprague is seeing if Intermec has a wedge reader that we can use and
not have to develop any software interface. I should know by Monday.
Thanks for your help and input. I hope that we can have a solution soon.
Cheers,
Pick
>Pick,
>
>Thanks for the info on code49. I'll be curious about what you find on
>Monday. From your description, it still doesn't sound too good for
>Code49. People are not going to be too keen on staying wed to a
>particular company like Intermec, and having to buy specialized
>printers and scanners. It sounds like there may be workarounds for
>reading our existing labels, but if we can make code128 work, that
>may be a better symbology for the long-run. Code49 labels are still
>somewhat tricky to read. I was amazed at how fast and easily the
>code128 label read.
>
>Jack
>******************************************************
>John T. Longino
>Lab I, The Evergreen State College
>Olympia WA 98505 USA
>longinoj@evergreen.edu
>Ants of Costa Rica on the Web at http://www.evergreen.edu/ants
>Project ALAS at http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/ALAS/ALAS.html
>******************************************************