Good answer, Robert. An appropriate use of barcodes, then. And one that actually solved a problem!

There's lots of barcode related stuff on eBay, of course. Including a couple of the type you mention (with PS/2 connectors). But it looks like most of the hand-held scanners use USB these days.

That is exactly what we want to do book it out to a place and book it back. Will look into a scanner and see what software it comes with.

Cheers

Good news! I won a couple of these off eBay for £ 11 the pair, and one of them works* just as you describe, Robert. It uses PS/2 male and female connections (plus a "little box") that connect between the keyboard and the PC, as you mention. There is a DC input socket on the box, but the thing seems to work OK without any power other than what it filches from the PC PS/2 connector (5 VDC between pins 3 and 4, of course).

There's a button on the scanner handle to flash the barcode. The thing bleeps as it recognises the barcode, and plonks (yes, a good technical term, that) the code in normal ASCII characters wherever on the screen your keyboard cursor happens to be patiently waiting (eg, in a NotePad text file, database field, spreadsheet cell, DOS command line ... wherever). Or even right here (look):-

0106945764400014

(although that was seen as a "download" for some reason ... interesting)

Brilliant! And no need for software (Billy) ... just an initial re-boot.

OK, now I'm looking forward to hours of fun, Mate ... you know, looking out for all the various barcode types to try (and, er, collect)!

* The other may need a bit of coaxing into life!