CueCat

The CueCat R.I.P.

Back in 2000, Radio Shack, Wired magazine, and others distriubted the CueCat, a free bar code scanner from Digital Convergence. They were designed to be used only in conjunction with Digital Convergence's lame-ass web site. They are definitely not designed to be free bar code scanners.

Some of us were determined to liberate the CueCat for use as a general purpose bar code scanner. One place to start is the CatNip decoding software written by Rich Goldstein. It turns the CueCat into a free, general purpose bar code wand. Then when you scan a bar code, the scanner will return just the bar code data, not the big chunk of garbled stuff that Digital Convergence spits out.

Azalea Software's very own Jerry Whiting has gone on record with his admittedly biased perspective on the late great CueCat. He was quoted in this story and this story too.

While we find the CueCat an interesting toy (after all, we do sell barcode software), it has been relegated to a footnote in the history of barcodes and auto ID. While Azalea Software is a big fan and proponent of consumer auto ID, the CueCat was not the approach. Read our CueCat Postmortem to learn where we stand.

All said and done, if you're still interested in playing with the CueCat, download our QTools for Windows or the tar.gz file.