Hi, I wonder if someone could help with reading the PPC Rom barcodes at the end of the manual?
I only have a copy from the Museum DVD. I have printed some, but cannot read these at all.
I notice in the manual, mention is made of special paper that these were printed on, in the original manual.
Is this required to read these properly, or have I missed something and should be able to read these if printed on normal paper?
Would really appreciate your help.
Regards John

Hi John,
The 'special paper' is simply the thermal paper that the HP printer needed, as the print head uses heat to activate a heat-sensitive coating on the paper, which turns black..same process used with early fax machines.
If your barcodes are clearly printed without any distortion, and you're using a wand (pen) to manually sweep over the barcode, remember to start about 1-2cm before the barcode (left or right) and *quickly* swipe the wand across the code. Too slow and the decode will fail. No special paper needed to read a good quality barcode - but the old wands can be difficult to use. I personally only have experience with the HP (sapphire tipped) and Welch-Allyn (recessed) wands from the early 90's, but they all work the same way.
Cheers from Johannesburg...

What kind of printer are you using? I think I recall that ink jets could be a problem? (Or maybe I'm thinking of something else.)

Anyone recall?

Bob

Thanks Max. The reason I ask is because the "bar codes" in the PPC manual seem condensed compared to normal bar code.
I have printed some of these, but cannot read them.
Nice to hear from someone in SA.
Regards John

Thanks for replying Bob. I am using an Ink Jet, but have no problem with printing and reading barcodes, other than from the PPC manual.
Regards John

The PPC ROM Users Manual says on page 3 that the barcodes in Appendix N are indeed "printed on special paper". These are pages 469 through 487 of the manual. The paper is only "special" insofar as it's higher-quality, smoother paper than the ordinary paper used for the other pages. It's not any kind of magical "barcode paper".

At the chem lab in college, I used to print bar codes on glossy clay coated paper (think heavy weight glossy photo paper today) using a 0.3mm drafting nib pen in a custom holder on a 9872 plotter. The holder had a nice counter weight to balance the additional weight of the drafting nib. It worked really well, just had to keep the pen down for an entire row to prevent excessive wear on the nib.

Thanks Joe