I’ve got an old footlocker in my office, filled with miscellaneous computer components. I was cleaning it out today… wiping old hard drives before dismantling them and putting an assortment of old cables in a box for eBay, when I came across my old CueCat. For those not aware, a CueCat (pictured at right) is a handheld optical barcode reader, developed by the now defunct Digital Convergence corporation. The default output from these barcode readers was mildly encrypted, preventing most people from using the barcode reader without the CueCat software. However, for many years now, there have been easy hacks available to disable the encryption and allow the CueCat to output human-readable text. I know this is nothing new, but I found it difficult to find the hack specific to the version of the CueCat I have. Someone actually posted the following tips in a newsgroup back in 2000 and I’ve taken some pictures to accompany the tips:

How to Hack the CueCat – originally dated October 2000.

This modification has been verified on CueCat model 68-1965 with internal board version: K023A016 REV:C date code: 0024.

The CueCat is held together with 2 screws. Simply use a Phillips head screwdriver to remove the screws and open the case. Inside is a Hyundai CPU which can be altered to convert the CueCat so it produces plain ASCII output. This can be accomplished by lifting pin 10 of the Hyundai CPU, which is normally connected to ground (so if you solder a wire from 5v to pin 10, you will have a short- so do not do this!). Instead, separate pin 10 from ground. When pin 10 is unsoldered (or cut), it will float high, no need to solder it to anything.

Pin 10 can be found on the lower right side of the bottom row of pins when orienting the CPU so that the word “Hyundai” is right side up. Pin 11 is the last pin on the right of the bottom row. Pin 10 is just to the left of pin 11. There is a short length of PCB trace between pin 10 and the ground plane. This can be cut with a sharp knife, or one can use a soldering iron and desoldering braid to remove the excess solder on pin 10, then gently pry it up with the tip of a sharp knife while heating with the soldering iron.

It took me all of 2 minutes to take a tiny screwdriver and break pin 10 off of the Hyundai CPU chip. After some quick re-assembly, my CueCat was spitting out barcode translations that I could actually read. This is great for cataloging books, CDs, movies, and software using Amazon.com’s Your Media Library feature.

Our long search for a well-priced Nintendo Wii has finally come to a happy end. With no interest in satisfying those eBay scumbags by paying more than $400 for something that only cost $250, we were forced to find an ol’ brick and mortar establishment. Having never ventured out on Black Friday before, I figured – what better time to go track down a Wii? Some quick research on the net Thursday night uncovered the fact that few retailers were going to have Wii’s in stock on Friday morning. K-mart, for whatever reason, was open Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, they also sold their stock of Wii’s that day… which meant no Wii’s on Friday.

Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Sears… none of them were advertising any Wii availability during their Friday sales. Many other retailers indicated they would not have Wii’s in stock for Friday morning. However, I uncovered an online flyer from GameStop (aka EB Games) which was advertising the Nintendo Wii for $249.99 (of course, with the tagline “limited quantities”). This was our shot. With the store opening at 7am, we figured getting there an hour or two early would suffice. We now knew the store, the last remaining question was which one do we go to? There were two locations inside our local mall and one location in an outdoor strip mall just across the street from the mall. Hmmm, what to do? So off to bed we went.

A mere four hours later, the alarm clock struck 4:13am. By 4:55am we were standing in front of GameStop. No, not inside a nice warm mall… outside in the brisk morning breeze. All of the people in line were really nice, many having been there for hours. My wife and I were 11th or 12th in line and a sign on the door indicated that there would be 23 Wii’s available Friday morning. WooHoo! During our time in line, even when there were only 15 or so people, cars would drive up and look at the line… and then proceed to drive away. If only they parked and got out of their car – they’d be the proud owner of a Wii!

Fast forward past the 2 hours of trying to keep warm and there we were, asking the cashier for our share of Wii. Some tips for waiting in line next year… bring a hat, gloves, warm clothes, comfy shoes, a hot beverage, and something to occupy the time. Oh, and we came to find out the lines at both GameStop locations inside the mall had over 100 people.

Ok, off to play…

Sorry, this isn’t about music from The Cars, it’s about the elusive AMF Magic Triangle (aka The AMF Pindicator). After years of looking for one of these, I finally stumbled upon a bowling discussion forum and figured I’d post a message asking if anyone out there had one of these triangles. Sure enough, a great guy named Jim from Kansas wrote back saying he had some lying around. He sent pictures (that’s his restored one in the picture) and provided tips on how to strip off the old paint and restore them.

Well, my triangle finally arrived today! Woohoo! Thanks to another bit of magic, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, I was able to clean up the plastic backing that holds all of the light bulbs – for something that is over 50 years old, it almost looks new! My next task is to strip the paint off the metal grill and re-paint it. Then it’s off to re-wire the triangle, make all the lights work, and hang it up in the game room. I have a picture of what my triangle looks like (minus the white backing).

I’m not sure what’s stranger… the fact that I have a magic triangle or the fact that there are other people out there who have done the same thing I want to do!