5 ms·

CueCat

10 points by alex_c 17y ago

jazzychad 17y ago
I still have mine right here. It's sitting next to my monitor. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to scan correctly anymore, but I wrote a few windows apps back in the day to catalog my CD collection and even one that talked to iTunes that would play a particular album when I scanned it. I really wish I could find a working one.
- seregine 17y ago
  I got a working one about a year ago from here as a curiosity: http://www.librarything.com/cuecat http://www.librarything.com/cuecat Wish I knew about them in college - would've made my temp job organizing a small department library much easier.
seasoup 17y ago
I got one of the free cue cats back when they mailed them to all wired participants. I remember that seemed like an incredibly expensive thing to do, I set up the product and scanned a few things but quickly became bored with it. It seems like there are so may other better ways to do something similar...
- keefe 17y ago
  I got one the same way! I was pretty young at that time so it was really exciting until I, too, realized how useless it was... and now my android phone does it all and more!
- lurkinggrue 17y ago
  I got a bunch for Radio Shack and got bored with them quickly. I think that was around the time the i-Opener came out the $99 Internet appliance that people noticed had a hard drive header and accessible bios: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener
- cema 17y ago
  I remember having exactly the same experience. It was an interesting technological toy. But something was missing, and it sank quickly. I cannot quite figure out what was wrong. Most likely not on the technical side.
timr 17y ago
CueCat is now just Wikipedia lore? I feel old. Those things were a favorite hack target for a couple of years in college....
- alex_c 17y ago
  Not sure if it was distributed outside the US, I would guess not... so it's (mostly) new to me. The kinds of things we miss out on, up here in Canada ;)
celticjames 17y ago
That would make a good iPhone app.
ars 17y ago
One of my clients is making an app (non-public) where everything is done by handing out cards with barcodes, which are then scanned in. We were very close to buying a couple thousand cuecats for it. I don't remember why we didn't, I think because they were not reliable (sliding the wand, vs. point and click for the gun types).

10 points by alex_c 17y ago

I still have mine right here. It's sitting next to my monitor. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to scan correctly anymore, but I wrote a few windows apps back in the day to catalog my CD collection and even one that talked to iTunes that would play a particular album when I scanned it. I really wish I could find a working one.

seregine 17y ago
I got a working one about a year ago from here as a curiosity: http://www.librarything.com/cuecat http://www.librarything.com/cuecat Wish I knew about them in college - would've made my temp job organizing a small department library much easier.

seasoup 17y ago

I got one of the free cue cats back when they mailed them to all wired participants. I remember that seemed like an incredibly expensive thing to do, I set up the product and scanned a few things but quickly became bored with it. It seems like there are so may other better ways to do something similar...

keefe 17y ago
I got one the same way! I was pretty young at that time so it was really exciting until I, too, realized how useless it was... and now my android phone does it all and more!
lurkinggrue 17y ago
I got a bunch for Radio Shack and got bored with them quickly. I think that was around the time the i-Opener came out the $99 Internet appliance that people noticed had a hard drive header and accessible bios: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener
cema 17y ago
I remember having exactly the same experience. It was an interesting technological toy. But something was missing, and it sank quickly. I cannot quite figure out what was wrong. Most likely not on the technical side.

timr 17y ago

CueCat is now just Wikipedia lore? I feel old. Those things were a favorite hack target for a couple of years in college....

alex_c 17y ago
Not sure if it was distributed outside the US, I would guess not... so it's (mostly) new to me. The kinds of things we miss out on, up here in Canada ;)

celticjames 17y ago

That would make a good iPhone app.

ars 17y ago

One of my clients is making an app (non-public) where everything is done by handing out cards with barcodes, which are then scanned in. We were very close to buying a couple thousand cuecats for it. I don't remember why we didn't, I think because they were not reliable (sliding the wand, vs. point and click for the gun types).