Section 3
OPERATION
Operating Procedure
The Omni reader is easy to operate. Just follow these simple steps:
1. Make sure the reader is properly connected (see sections 2 and 6) and
is receiving sufficient power. (See Section 6, Troubleshooting, if there is a
cabling or power problem.)
2. To read a card, slide the card, in either direction, through the reader
slot, with the bar code facing the optical head (LED side) or the magnetic
stripe facing the magnetic head (opposite side).
3. Once the entire bar code or magnetic stripe has been read, the LED
indicator will light up as green to signal a “good read.” If a good read is
not obtained, the LED indicator will light up as red.
4. A beep will also sound to indicate a good read on the bar code or each
magnetic track, as appropriate. If all three tracks have been read success-
fully, the reader will beep three times.
5. The decoded data will be transmitted to the host application.
Note: Output data can be verified in Notepad (or another document editor).
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2
Section 2
INSTALLATION
Host Connections
The Omni reader is connected between the keyboard input port of the
host computer and the keyboard itself using a “Y” cable. The “Y” cable
has a 6-pin mini-DIN female on one end, and a 6-pin mini-DIN male on the
other end.
To connect the reader to the host, turn the power off and disconnect the
keyboard from the computer. Connect the keyboard to the female end of
the “Y” cable. Then insert the male end of the “Y” cable into the keyboard
port. This “wedges” the reader between the host and the keyboard.
Manually-entered data from the keyboard passes through the unit to the
host, leaving the keyboard fully functional at all times.
Data from either of the input heads is transmitted to the host keyboard
port, where it appears to the host as coming directly from the keyboard.
This makes the reader, as a data source, completely transparent to the
host’s application software. In other words, if it is expecting data from the
keyboard, that same data can be entered via the Omni and make no
difference to the host.
Since the host computer’s application software is expecting data to be
input in a particular order and format, the reader’s output can be config-
ured to simulate the keyboard-entered data stream by adding terminating
characters and special preamble and/or postamble character strings to
scanned data.
