Symbol PDT 6846 programs

[thevillageinn]

I hope this question fits the category closely enough.

I recently received a PDT 6846 when a friends company was consolidating their warehouse operations and closed some branches.

Unfortunately I'm not any sort of DOS programmer and am at a total loss when it comes to writing a simple program to allow me to scan our code39 inventory labels, input a count and (optionally/ideally) set a value as to whether I need to print a new label or not for that item.

I've found a few software companies who are still offering licenses to their programs (like MCL-collection and Teklynx) but thing is we've (I've) got no money to buy a commercial or special product for this scanner. I'm not trying to integrate this into any sort of complex system. We just keep track of the inventory on Access. Plus I've already got a working wedge type scanner so this PDT would just help to speed the inventory process along and eliminate rolling the laptop all around the warehouse.

I've been all over Symbol/Motorola's website to try to find sample programs in any of their Dev Kits but haven't been successful...yet. Which is why I'm here.

Does anyone have some sample programs for the PDT 6xxx series? I only want to do batch transfer.

Many thanks-
-Dan

 

[thevillageinn]

They quoted me two or three hundred dollars I believe.

Thanks for the offer but I can't accept to share the program.

I think you're going to find that these terminals are so old that nearly no-one has been developing for them for years. The terminal is a portable computer which has flash type memory and disk and runs DrDOS as it's operating system. Fewer and fewer people are doing anything with DOS these days.

I'm not sure I understand your second question about a windows program to recognize and program the terminals - but that's what Barcode Datalink claim to have (if I understand you correctly).

I've found various other companies who have worked on the PDTs in the past but most of the solutions were just too expensive for me to even consider (since this whole thing came to me for free and even using the PDT instead of the wedge scanner was all my idea to be funded out of my own pocket).

 

[jinxnz]

So what options do I have at the moment?... even if i can just the data to come out a a batch file after I scan a lot i'd be happy as the terminals are still in command mode. i'd be happy at this point as I'm not even sure what I can do at this point for my stocktake.

Any help at this point would be much appreciated. I'm going to e-mail the company that you've shown me tvi. thanks

 

[thevillageinn]

You can't do anything until you have a program which loads when the PDT boots and accepts your inputs whether with the laser or keyboard.

Contact any company which has ever had software for the PDT and see what you can get from them.

The PDT is useless without a program loaded onto it. Think of it as the Command Prompt on the computer - it's just a black screen with a flashing cursor. No matter what you type or scan it won't do anything with that data until a program has been loaded.