My friends and i worked at a bowling alley where the arcade prize tickets were just printed values with a barcode. Buddy bought one of these to scan the tickets and figure out how the values worked, then we got a receipt printer and made a ton of false tickets. Prizes included were game systems, bikes, a sweet 6ft tall lava lamp and others. We'd send siblings or friends in to collect the prizes and just slipped a few real ticket reciepts in just in case. So, no. Not the most useless item ever.
He has a number of things correct in this story but missed a few points. I worked for digital convergence. The Cue Cat was just a launch product. It's entire purpose was to show what was possible. There were several other products that were never released to the public. One was a ball point pen that had a cue reader in it. It was designed to have with you and allow you scan a cue while out and about then whenever you were back at you computer it plugged into a docking station/charger and allowed you to pull up the site. The original software did only read cues but that was a proof of concept. The goal was for companies to pay to have their UPC codes linked to company or promotional websites. Say Coca cola is running a summer promotion. You just scan the UPC and the promotional website pops up. With the pen, you could be reading a story and scan the cue so you can go right to that story on the web at a later time. The privacy concerns were only from lack of communication. The only information kept from registration was cat serial number and zip code. The remaining personal information was stored in a separate database and not tagged together. Example John Doe 123 something street Dallas, TX 75400 214-555-1212 Jdoe@something.com Cat serial number (sent with every scan) Database one housed Name Address Email Database 2 housed Cat Serial number zip code Database one was used for marketing materials directly to the person but was not tied into the scanning system Database two was used for demographics to companies. Marketing reports could be provided to clients showing what types of products or interests were hot in a given area. But there was no way to tie and individual scan back to a specific person. The model that was developed at digital convergence is very common place today. It was ahead of its time. Poor leadership was the primary downfall of the company. The leadership was spend happy and spent the company out of business.
I've heard of this brought-up before, but I still can't help but be skeptical how loosely tied-together all that information really is? Wouldn't there still be some way by which those can be associated with one another? Hence why people REALLY dislike Windows 10's built-in tracking features.
Way ahead of its time. QR codes and selling user information is now so ubiquitous they're wholly unremarkable. Also - video mentioned Dave Matthews. Not the same guy as Dave Matthew's band Dave Matthews is he?
Just because two databases at a company aren't cross-referenced today does not mean that they won't be cross-referenced tomorrow. In the late '90s I heard a IT manager at a supermarket store chain claim that they would not record what customers with their loyalty card bought. "Absolutely not. Will never happen. Physically impossible. Out of the question." Ten years later, I started getting 10% off on a selection of my most purchased goods.
"Ever hear of a CueCat?" Yeah, I remember playing around with that when I was a kid. Later on I did the mod to make it... "Of course not. Nobody has." Oh, my mistake. Guess I haven't heard of it.
0:35 "Not many peripherals imitate an animal" - I thought it was a reference to the mouse? Like, on your desk, you have a mouse, and now you have a cat.
+RaymondHng I invite you to partake in a dose of a search engine for "declaw cuecat". They were easy to modify and make actually useful, and I was using it to inventory some of my personal hardware way back.
Right now (August 2017), the personal library website LibraryThing sells CueCats and supports creating your own barcodes for your collection. Kinda cool to see it being used again.
It looks more like some form of adult toy. Seriously, if saw one of these without knowing what it is, I would expect it to vibrate upon plugging into a USB port
I have a semi soft spot for the Cue Cat, as useless as it is nowadays with the advent of QR codes There were actually two types of Cue Cats, the USB type shown in the video and a keyboard PS/2 daisy chain (you plug the Cue Cat into your keyboard (purple) PS/2 mini DIN port on your computer and your keyboard plugged into a connector coming out of the plug) I had one of the latter, and as such, it just emulated keyboard output, so you could open up any notepad or word processing program, scan a barcode (upc or cuecat) and it would "type" the numbers/letters of that barcode One time my cousin decided to use a UPC code as his user password and locked himself out of his account because the cuecat misread the UPC code when he was setting up the password, it was hilarious
I remember seeing these on tv and not understanding what they were for but all these years I could not recall what they were called. So thanks for solving that mystery.
Every day (at least in late 2023) there are hundreds of TV commercials airing with QR codes, billboards, posters, junk mail with QR codes that people go scan to get more ads from an otherwise non-interactive visual source. People see ads and then pull out their gizmos and scan to get more ads. The CueCat was ahead of its time!
1:22 - Then - CueCat Now - Every smart phone ever! barcodes being read just by the camera looking at it. Also in case of the very curious that bar code leads to product called the "Globalscale Dreamplug"
There was a game in either 1998 or 1999 where kids would scan barcodes & it would convert them into some kind of Pokemon thing where their attack power had something to do with the code. The CueCat should have tapped into that, even though the fad only lasted one year.
I had 3 of these, 1 was the early PS/2 version and 2 were USB. Hacking this thing and using it to track all my DVDs felt like I was living in the future! 😸
I bought a box full of those things in 2006 at an auction, I found that you can just jumper 2 points on the board and turn it into a standard ASCII scanner, sold them on ebay at a nice profit after the modification :) they were cute
One problem with the CueCat distribution model was that at Radio Shack, every time we gave one out, we had to process it like a transaction for $0.00. At the time, the company was placing an insane amount of focus on dollars per transaction, and individual associates and managers were being fired if their numbers were too low. Managers were also not making their bonuses, which was a major part of their compensation package at the time. So, as a result, despite unprecedented demand, we were always "out of CueCats," unless the customer was already buying something else and asked for one, and there was no one else in the store at the time. This was a widespread practice.
When I was in school in the late 90s early 2000s we had a Lazer disk player and the teacher used a barcode scanner to scan codes in a book to go to parts of the Lazar disk. Does anyone know about what I'm talking about?
Actually, Cuecat is more like a short link service (similar to things like bit.ly, or, since it most probably contains ads, more like adf.ly), rather than QR codes. The thing about QR codes is that, a QR code can contain the link itself while a barcode (at least traditional ones) can only store an index number for looking up the actual link on the server. Therefore, you don't even need to connect to any server, or being online at all, to scan and make use of a QR code, but that's really not possible (in a way that make sense) when using Cuecat cues. By the way, traditionally barcodes also don't need to be touched when scanning, since (for example, in a supremarket) it's usually scanned by a line scanner (or multiple line scanners so that there's no need to orient the code a lot), rather than a dot scanner like Cuecat. Therefore, surface condition requirement is around the same among barcodes and matrix codes like QR codes. Though it's still better to use QR codes if possible, since it contains redundant information to enable scanning a partially damaged code, something not possible when scanning barcodes (if one bar is missing in a barcode, it's basically game over).
I think that short URLs (bitly etc.) have taken over their main application. Everyone can recognise that a short URL is a URL, but even young people still ask me what a QR code is. I end up using QRs and short URLs together, and people can use the one they find easier.
Even QR codes aren't doing too well, though. You see them places... but why? Not everyone has a QR reader app installed and opening an app to scan one isn't much faster than just typing in a URL. That "scan to get a map" example in this video is fucking ridiculous as they should just have a picture of a map there in the first place. And all URL QR codes are completely useless if you refuse to pay for mobile data or are somewhere with poor/non-existent reception. Just like the CueCat thing, QR codes can be monitored, just to a lesser extent. If a QR code leads to myshortdomain/uniqueID, the number of times each code owned by one company (or more than one if they team up) gets scanned can be easily monitored, and with a cookie, which codes get scanned by a single user can be tracked too. If the codes are on signs and billboards (or anything stationary), they'd also be able to know the user's exact location at the time of scanning.
Well, there is one benefit to the map example, and that is that rather than having to stand at the board reading it you can take the map with you on your phone. The QR code would be more helpful if your phone could identify when it's looking at one when you're just using your camera and automatically process it. Kind of like face recognition.
Mr Videos & Games Lol, looks like somebody's out of the loop. QR code scanning is near instant, in the time it takes to open up a browser and enter the url, I could scan a dozen QR codes. Also the scanners are built into most smartphones, iphone just recently. Also if you don't have data/wifi, then why are you scanning a code in the first place? Stupid argument. Anyway you don't need data to scan QR. You could copy the url and save it for later.
+fireyf Then why not have the map displayed and in the corner have the QR code? +Bonkaholic Yes, QR scanning is very quick, but it means waiting for two apps to open instead of one. Normal users won't scan more than one code at a time.
At my workplace, we have job aids littering the premises detailing work procedures, and attached to those job aids are QR codes linking to an instructional video and additional information on the subject or procedure. It is entirely helpful and reduces the amount of space required for each job aid, and is an excellent reference tool. It essentially combines textual information with audible instruction and visual demonstration anywhere and everywhere possible. As stated, QR code scanning is integrated into android and ios camera apps. The time frames we're talking about for the scanning and associated apps opening are negligible, a matter of seconds to perhaps a one or two minutes on an exceptionally slow phone. This window of time is no appreciable loss to a person's day, or outing, or date, and if the person finds it too slow or cumbersome I contend they should reassess their values and priorities.
I used my free CueCats to good effect for reading all kinds of barcodes with some free software. I used it to create a database of my books. I also downloaded a list of UPC codes and created a database table. Then I scanned products I purchased and made shopping lists. I used a laptop that I moved into the kitchen to do the scanning. After a few times shopping I had a list of my frequently purchased items and I used that to generate shopping lists for subsequent trips to the supermarket. Nowadays, Its all so much easier!
I remember having the USB model back in the day. Cue codes were rare, so I tried using it to scan UPC codes. Usually it would either not find anything or direct me to some random page related to what I was scanning (or rather, trying to scan). Turns out that it was easier just to use a search engine. As a bonus, it did come with a nice long audio cable - the idea being that the software could pick up audio cues from what you were watching on TV using the line-in port on your sound card. I think I used it as a subwoofer hookup and might still have it around somewhere
I have one of these, the PS2 version. My work got one for reading serial number barcodes. When they upgraded to a computer that didn't have PS2 keyboards, I hauled off with the Cuecat unit.
I had one of those. Used it only a few times before it got too annoying to use. Not only was it tied to a computer but I had to get online to use it and in the year 2000 that required a dial up modem, time and use of a phone line. When I heard some one had written inventory software for it I got excited but was never able to find the software.
When I got one of these from radio shack, it contained an RCA to minijack meant to listen for ads on TV and provide the website of the product being advertised. It also read UPCs without special software.
This is the way TH-cam should be. Entertaining videos that get right to the point and don't have people yelling at you to subscribe or like. I know that for people who rely on TH-cam for their primary source of income, likes are pretty vital, but it's nice to not be bothered about it. Keep up the great work.
I'm all for a physical device that could read links from one screen and output them onto another device. It would help with entering long and specific Linux terminal commands. Especially the ones with weird symbols like the ~ or the |
Golden Grenadier In theory, the CueCat could have done that (if it supports characters instead of just numbers), but the author of the book/webpage would have to include the barcodes
I found one of these helping clean my grandma's "computer" room (it was only one 90's dell) the C was almost completely scratched off and the wiring had started to fray. Didn't want to plug it into my own computer, but it's was cool to see
pinpointrabbit 2 Memories! Somewhere in storage, I have a couple unopened ones in both ps/2 & usb. They kept cost-optimizing the design to the point they'd only scan perfect codes, on a good day. The older ones were more reliable.
I have three of the ps/2 types ... didn't even know they'd made a USB version until I saw this video, etc. "Of course" I use I use ps/2 type perfectly fine with a ps/2 to USB adapter.
Throughout my life my family owned a Radioshack & Western Auto store, they would always celebrate something new they got in which was all the time. I remember growing up seeing all kinds of cool and whacky gizmos like the desk fan with led lights on the blades to form advertising messages (Cool as hell in the 90's) or the telemarketer zapper which really didn't work. But yea I remember this, we had one and my overly exciting dad boasted about this new gizmo for days and weeks saying it was going to be the pinnacle of the future.He would always look for ways to use it but in reality we rarely ever used it, it just sat there lol but when you were bored it was cool to look at. I remember this well. I didn't know about modding and all that stuff back then but probably for the best as he would have been devastated had I opened up and modified this shiny new computer accessory of the future lol. This video brings back so much nostalgia not just of the CueCat but also of the glory days of RadioShack and the often crazy things they would get in or new ideas they'd try out that inevitably end up all over not just our house but his business. (Yea he put the cue cat on all of the work computers at western auto/radioshack) and put the LED fan mentioned earlier on a specially built shelf above the entrance/exit doors.
Some discussions in the comments made me think of some similar devices, one of which I had as a kid: a line of toys called Scannerz, which scanned barcodes and did some magic with the data to catch monsters.
Instead of manually cataloguing by typing in book/CD credentials, one could simply scan the bar code on the item and log it that way, usually with the help of some third-party software.
The barcode on a book generally contains the ISBN, which is a unique identifier for the book. Given the ISBN, you can look up all the other details of the book (title, author, etc.)
Cuecat also had an "audio cue" component. I remember them on NBC, I think, maybe around the time of the Olympics, or just on random commercials. You'd hear a bong on tv; I think the cuecat was hooked up to the sound card and keyboard too, and then it would load up a website.
I have one of those and I’m only 16 lol. We used them to scan normal barcodes in the library of my old school. But I never knew that there were special codes for them and everything so that’s cool to learn!
I used to have a CueCat. I remember my local newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, at the time had cue codes on all their articles. I thought that was a pretty neat idea, since you could scan the cuecode link and pull up a link to that article in the paper. I was pretty young when they were around, so I don't exactly remember what usefulness you gained by having a link to the paper's article. I guess it made it easier to email the link & share it or comment on it. I tried it once & thought it was a neat idea, but never used it again. While my elderly father who was the only one in the household who read the paper never used it, so I guess that's why it was pretty much a flop. There was no real incentive to use it, so no one did. Plus that was right around the time of the dot com crash, so everything was failing. Just another contraption nobody really needed so nobody really used it.
My initial reaction was "Oh, a nifty forgotten item that looks like a cat? These must have gotten rare and expensive for tech collectors..." And then I checked ebay. They're literally being sold by the hundreds in giant lots. So even for novelty's sake or collectability, they're useless.
I''m surprised you didn't mention what happened to the creator of the Cue Cat, Dave Matthews, after the product flopped (forming the pop music band, "The Dave Matthews band")
I wanted one, but there were gone from the shack before I got one. I wound up buying a different bar code scanner but it was like $150 for the scanner and software. Kind of a rip off
It did scan normal barcodes. Sort of. Those bar codes had to be in our database. It just took a LONG time to add. Companies would pay to get their barcodes added and got moved to the front of the line in being entered.
I own this! I bought it for 1€ at the thrift store last year. I like DIY projects and just interesting tech (I'm a software developer) so I figured I'd try and see if I could somehow use it, especially since I googled it while at the store and the fact that it was called one of the worst tech products just made it a must buy! Still haven't figured out what to do with it or how to incorporate it into my existing projects, but it's appearance alone is worth the euro.
Crazy that this video was posted on the 16th of December in 2016, because that's probably within 3 days of when I bought it. I was doing some Christmas shopping at thrift stores and couldn't resist buying some old tech for myself as well.
1:05 So it was like a precursor to QR-codes, except a) It needed a special device connected to a full-size PC, rather than being able to use the camera built into every smartphone b) They never thought of putting it into anything beyond the printed page--e.g. shop windows, rears of vehicles, building/place signs and all those other weird places you can find QR-codes.
I had one of these, that i saw in an infomerical in the middle of the night. They touted it by how you can scan UPC codes on any product so you can get more information about it. Or if it didn't know what the bar code was it will ask you to tell it what it was that was just scanned. So from day 1 (for me) they let you use any kind of bar code.. I've never seen catalogs with Cue Codes like in this video. I think i still have my Cue cat but the software it came with won't work in modern Windows.
i almost feel bad for them. they had a pretty damned good idea. it was like qr codes. and honestly i think it would've had a niche if they just sold it as a "home barcode scanner" and bundled it with some barcode generation/printing and database software that for instance had a 'shareware' stage that went into an 'ad supported' stage that could be upgraded to a 'ad-free' mode if you bought the license. Alas, the time is past...
Serious question, do people actually use QR codes either? I've done it like 3 times on my phone for the novelty of it, but yeah, otherwise I just automatically type in the address I want or do a search. I just don't think the general premise/technology solves a real 'problem.'
If you came of age in the era of camera phones with multi-megapixels CCD's you can't appreciate what a trip it was to get a FREE barcode scanner at Radio Shack. Are the time we were paying at least $200 for a handheld peripheral. This thing plugged inline with your keyboard and was ridiculously easy to decode. It used an encoding scheme similar to the UUE encoding used to embed digital enclosures (such as phitographs) in emails. Add a "CCscan" function into your software et voila! Instant UPC scanner for an on-the-cheap point of sale system!
I think one of these is still sitting somewhere in my parent's house. Totally forgot about it, but I do recall getting one for free so I was ecstatic at the time about it. Used it for a few days and then forgot about it. Funny what you find on youtube these days.
Something I saw when I went to California once was a board advertising something that, aswell as having a qr code, had nfc tag to go to the link by tapping your Android phone to it.
I got mine from radio shack. I remember It showed me codes I scanned in other upc codes. You also forgot another thing they did. It also came with a free 10'(?) Audio cord. It would let the software listen for specific tones on TV a commercial or show might play that were an audio version of scanning a code.
Whoah, I was just looking at a slip of paper with this companies name on it, that I came across in an old wire bin. Had never heard of the company but now I come across this.
Had one back in the day, the PS/2 version from Radio Shack It never saw any use though, as the only function it served at the time was to scan product numbers from the Radio Shack catalogs. I didn't shop there too often and wasn't so lazy that I couldn't type in the code myself.
My friends and i worked at a bowling alley where the arcade prize tickets were just printed values with a barcode. Buddy bought one of these to scan the tickets and figure out how the values worked, then we got a receipt printer and made a ton of false tickets. Prizes included were game systems, bikes, a sweet 6ft tall lava lamp and others. We'd send siblings or friends in to collect the prizes and just slipped a few real ticket reciepts in just in case. So, no. Not the most useless item ever.
You lucky fucker
FBI open up
I cried because that is absolutely too much winning.
too boring, should of flooded the place with tickets
@greycloud: so you’re just a thief. You’re not somebody who can be trusted.
He has a number of things correct in this story but missed a few points. I worked for digital convergence. The Cue Cat was just a launch product. It's entire purpose was to show what was possible. There were several other products that were never released to the public. One was a ball point pen that had a cue reader in it. It was designed to have with you and allow you scan a cue while out and about then whenever you were back at you computer it plugged into a docking station/charger and allowed you to pull up the site.
The original software did only read cues but that was a proof of concept. The goal was for companies to pay to have their UPC codes linked to company or promotional websites. Say Coca cola is running a summer promotion. You just scan the UPC and the promotional website pops up. With the pen, you could be reading a story and scan the cue so you can go right to that story on the web at a later time.
The privacy concerns were only from lack of communication. The only information kept from registration was cat serial number and zip code. The remaining personal information was stored in a separate database and not tagged together. Example
John Doe
123 something street
Dallas, TX 75400
214-555-1212
Jdoe@something.com
Cat serial number (sent with every scan)
Database one housed
Name
Address
Email
Database 2 housed
Cat Serial number
zip code
Database one was used for marketing materials directly to the person but was not tied into the scanning system
Database two was used for demographics to companies. Marketing reports could be provided to clients showing what types of products or interests were hot in a given area. But there was no way to tie and individual scan back to a specific person.
The model that was developed at digital convergence is very common place today. It was ahead of its time. Poor leadership was the primary downfall of the company. The leadership was spend happy and spent the company out of business.
I've heard of this brought-up before, but I still can't help but be skeptical how loosely tied-together all that information really is? Wouldn't there still be some way by which those can be associated with one another?
Hence why people REALLY dislike Windows 10's built-in tracking features.
What was Jovan like? everything I've read pinned him as the man behind the big losses
Way ahead of its time. QR codes and selling user information is now so ubiquitous they're wholly unremarkable.
Also - video mentioned Dave Matthews. Not the same guy as Dave Matthew's band Dave Matthews is he?
TSE should pin this
Just because two databases at a company aren't cross-referenced today does not mean that they won't be cross-referenced tomorrow.
In the late '90s I heard a IT manager at a supermarket store chain claim that they would not record what customers with their loyalty card bought. "Absolutely not. Will never happen. Physically impossible. Out of the question."
Ten years later, I started getting 10% off on a selection of my most purchased goods.
"Ever hear of a CueCat?"
Yeah, I remember playing around with that when I was a kid. Later on I did the mod to make it...
"Of course not. Nobody has."
Oh, my mistake. Guess I haven't heard of it.
Lol. I can see how everyone in the comments had one
@@FelipeV3444 nope i hadnt a fucking clue. lol :D
Its quite finiky tbh
0:35 "Not many peripherals imitate an animal" - I thought it was a reference to the mouse? Like, on your desk, you have a mouse, and now you have a cat.
catscan
I was wondering what the hell this thing in our junk drawer did.
Same, I always thought it was some weird "mouse"
You can still use it to read barcodes. but you need a long USB cable
The makers put a chip in the device to make it work with only the Cuecat barcodes. If you try to read UPC bar codes with it, you get gibberish.
+RaymondHng I invite you to partake in a dose of a search engine for "declaw cuecat". They were easy to modify and make actually useful, and I was using it to inventory some of my personal hardware way back.
a junk... drawer...? why keep junk lol
Calling the act of removing the serial chip "declawing" is amazing LOL
Right now (August 2017), the personal library website LibraryThing sells CueCats and supports creating your own barcodes for your collection. Kinda cool to see it being used again.
Tim D'Annecy Thanks for the tip! Watching this, I thought it would be cool to catalogue all my books.
There's an Android app that does that
I had a box of them from when RadioShack stopped handing them out. I used to work there back in the day. There were PS/2 and USB versions.
Pileggi Technical Services i jave a boox of them because a raidio sshack gave me thirty years of broken/returned stuff!!!!
pinpointrabbit 2 what was the point of that?
fair enough
Still have my old Cuecat. Enjoyed this video, thanks!
Angie D
I have two of them.
I have 0 :'(
I have one in a box somewhere. Would be useful to catalog all the books, cds, movies, etc that I have.
The makers put a chip in the device to make it work with only the Cuecat barcodes. If you try to read UPC bar codes with it, you get gibberish.
Both my USB version and PS/2 version read UPC bar codes with no problem right out of the box. Still use the USB one to this day.
the cuecat was supposed to eat digital mouse
underrated comment, i was going to say that XD
So I guess they started "Cue-R Codes". Heh.
QR Codes predates CueCat.
Kaminishi yeah, they were invented in 1994
* *badum-tss* *
Yoshidude64 w
It looks more like some form of adult toy.
Seriously, if saw one of these without knowing what it is, I would expect it to vibrate upon plugging into a USB port
Jack Duno kinky
purr
I have a semi soft spot for the Cue Cat, as useless as it is nowadays with the advent of QR codes
There were actually two types of Cue Cats, the USB type shown in the video and a keyboard PS/2 daisy chain (you plug the Cue Cat into your keyboard (purple) PS/2 mini DIN port on your computer and your keyboard plugged into a connector coming out of the plug)
I had one of the latter, and as such, it just emulated keyboard output, so you could open up any notepad or word processing program, scan a barcode (upc or cuecat) and it would "type" the numbers/letters of that barcode
One time my cousin decided to use a UPC code as his user password and locked himself out of his account because the cuecat misread the UPC code when he was setting up the password, it was hilarious
Michael Dickens Well, it would have been a great idea if it had worked.
Same, I had the PS/2 one.
I remember seeing these on tv and not understanding what they were for but all these years I could not recall what they were called. So thanks for solving that mystery.
Every day (at least in late 2023) there are hundreds of TV commercials airing with QR codes, billboards, posters, junk mail with QR codes that people go scan to get more ads from an otherwise non-interactive visual source. People see ads and then pull out their gizmos and scan to get more ads. The CueCat was ahead of its time!
1:22 -
Then - CueCat
Now - Every smart phone ever! barcodes being read just by the camera looking at it. Also in case of the very curious that bar code leads to product called the "Globalscale Dreamplug"
you didnt watch till the end did u?
oh yeah, plug me daddy; make me dream about globalist conspiracy theories
AnonymousViewer 😏
There was a game in either 1998 or 1999 where kids would scan barcodes & it would convert them into some kind of Pokemon thing where their attack power had something to do with the code. The CueCat should have tapped into that, even though the fad only lasted one year.
That QR code reads "Version 2". You're welcome!
Thanks dude
The other one reads: mupri.me/wE0QO. You're welcome.
Dominik Novosel nopee not clicking that lmaoo
Wait wait wait, there's a large ass qr code where a map would go to lead you to said map. Why not just have the fucking map.
Martin Gil Oyarzún or you could take a picture of the map for the same effect
I had 3 of these, 1 was the early PS/2 version and 2 were USB. Hacking this thing and using it to track all my DVDs felt like I was living in the future! 😸
Yo i love your channel!
Working at the company who made it was an interesting experience.
I bought a box full of those things in 2006 at an auction, I found that you can just jumper 2 points on the board and turn it into a standard ASCII scanner, sold them on ebay at a nice profit after the modification :) they were cute
@@ghq8982
r/iamverysmart
I not only have heard of it, I still have it AND still use it to scan DVDs/lBlurays/4Ks into my movie database.
Got mine from Radio Shack and actually used it quite a bit. You could scan a can of soup and pull up recipes as an example.
One problem with the CueCat distribution model was that at Radio Shack, every time we gave one out, we had to process it like a transaction for $0.00. At the time, the company was placing an insane amount of focus on dollars per transaction, and individual associates and managers were being fired if their numbers were too low. Managers were also not making their bonuses, which was a major part of their compensation package at the time. So, as a result, despite unprecedented demand, we were always "out of CueCats," unless the customer was already buying something else and asked for one, and there was no one else in the store at the time. This was a widespread practice.
When I was in school in the late 90s early 2000s we had a Lazer disk player and the teacher used a barcode scanner to scan codes in a book to go to parts of the Lazar disk. Does anyone know about what I'm talking about?
laser, with an s. also that is cool.
Yes! They had the same thing when I was in elementary school!
HaysiKing2 - search for laser disc players. Technomoan had a good video about them.
Actually, Cuecat is more like a short link service (similar to things like bit.ly, or, since it most probably contains ads, more like adf.ly), rather than QR codes.
The thing about QR codes is that, a QR code can contain the link itself while a barcode (at least traditional ones) can only store an index number for looking up the actual link on the server. Therefore, you don't even need to connect to any server, or being online at all, to scan and make use of a QR code, but that's really not possible (in a way that make sense) when using Cuecat cues.
By the way, traditionally barcodes also don't need to be touched when scanning, since (for example, in a supremarket) it's usually scanned by a line scanner (or multiple line scanners so that there's no need to orient the code a lot), rather than a dot scanner like Cuecat. Therefore, surface condition requirement is around the same among barcodes and matrix codes like QR codes. Though it's still better to use QR codes if possible, since it contains redundant information to enable scanning a partially damaged code, something not possible when scanning barcodes (if one bar is missing in a barcode, it's basically game over).
To this day I still haven't scanned a qr code... not against it, just never had a reason to
thefatmoop Well obviously it's not for you,
I think that short URLs (bitly etc.) have taken over their main application. Everyone can recognise that a short URL is a URL, but even young people still ask me what a QR code is. I end up using QRs and short URLs together, and people can use the one they find easier.
John Smith
I've used it a couple times when something had no URL and only had QR to get information from
(Like bus stop schedules in some places)
I've used it to get quick info on a product or my security camera box has a code to quickly get its id to connect
It's great for scanning long bitcoin and other CryptoCurrency addresses.
Even QR codes aren't doing too well, though. You see them places... but why? Not everyone has a QR reader app installed and opening an app to scan one isn't much faster than just typing in a URL. That "scan to get a map" example in this video is fucking ridiculous as they should just have a picture of a map there in the first place. And all URL QR codes are completely useless if you refuse to pay for mobile data or are somewhere with poor/non-existent reception.
Just like the CueCat thing, QR codes can be monitored, just to a lesser extent. If a QR code leads to myshortdomain/uniqueID, the number of times each code owned by one company (or more than one if they team up) gets scanned can be easily monitored, and with a cookie, which codes get scanned by a single user can be tracked too. If the codes are on signs and billboards (or anything stationary), they'd also be able to know the user's exact location at the time of scanning.
Well, there is one benefit to the map example, and that is that rather than having to stand at the board reading it you can take the map with you on your phone. The QR code would be more helpful if your phone could identify when it's looking at one when you're just using your camera and automatically process it. Kind of like face recognition.
Mr Videos & Games Lol, looks like somebody's out of the loop. QR code scanning is near instant, in the time it takes to open up a browser and enter the url, I could scan a dozen QR codes. Also the scanners are built into most smartphones, iphone just recently. Also if you don't have data/wifi, then why are you scanning a code in the first place? Stupid argument. Anyway you don't need data to scan QR. You could copy the url and save it for later.
+fireyf Then why not have the map displayed and in the corner have the QR code?
+Bonkaholic Yes, QR scanning is very quick, but it means waiting for two apps to open instead of one. Normal users won't scan more than one code at a time.
Mr Videos & Games apps dont even take that long to open. Usually it takes less than like 2 seconds.
At my workplace, we have job aids littering the premises detailing work procedures, and attached to those job aids are QR codes linking to an instructional video and additional information on the subject or procedure. It is entirely helpful and reduces the amount of space required for each job aid, and is an excellent reference tool. It essentially combines textual information with audible instruction and visual demonstration anywhere and everywhere possible.
As stated, QR code scanning is integrated into android and ios camera apps. The time frames we're talking about for the scanning and associated apps opening are negligible, a matter of seconds to perhaps a one or two minutes on an exceptionally slow phone. This window of time is no appreciable loss to a person's day, or outing, or date, and if the person finds it too slow or cumbersome I contend they should reassess their values and priorities.
I used my free CueCats to good effect for reading all kinds of barcodes with some free software. I used it to create a database of my books. I also downloaded a list of UPC codes and created a database table. Then I scanned products I purchased and made shopping lists. I used a laptop that I moved into the kitchen to do the scanning. After a few times shopping I had a list of my frequently purchased items and I used that to generate shopping lists for subsequent trips to the supermarket.
Nowadays, Its all so much easier!
I remember having the USB model back in the day. Cue codes were rare, so I tried using it to scan UPC codes. Usually it would either not find anything or direct me to some random page related to what I was scanning (or rather, trying to scan). Turns out that it was easier just to use a search engine.
As a bonus, it did come with a nice long audio cable - the idea being that the software could pick up audio cues from what you were watching on TV using the line-in port on your sound card. I think I used it as a subwoofer hookup and might still have it around somewhere
I had a CueCat when I was a kid, back when RadioShack was handing them out. Never even used the thing. Just sat in a drawer and collected dust.
So was it Dave Matthews seeing the first QR code and shouting: "Cue arrrr!!!!" which lead to the name?
I have one of these, the PS2 version.
My work got one for reading serial number barcodes.
When they upgraded to a computer that didn't have PS2 keyboards, I hauled off with the Cuecat unit.
I had one of those. Used it only a few times before it got too annoying to use. Not only was it tied to a computer but I had to get online to use it and in the year 2000 that required a dial up modem, time and use of a phone line.
When I heard some one had written inventory software for it I got excited but was never able to find the software.
When I got one of these from radio shack, it contained an RCA to minijack meant to listen for ads on TV and provide the website of the product being advertised. It also read UPCs without special software.
This is the way TH-cam should be. Entertaining videos that get right to the point and don't have people yelling at you to subscribe or like. I know that for people who rely on TH-cam for their primary source of income, likes are pretty vital, but it's nice to not be bothered about it. Keep up the great work.
I still have my CueCat too! It had a lot of potential. Thank you for the video!
I worked in tech support for a school system at this time. We used them in the library to check in books.
I'm all for a physical device that could read links from one screen and output them onto another device. It would help with entering long and specific Linux terminal commands. Especially the ones with weird symbols like the ~ or the |
Just hope you are not doing rm -rf /dir/ and it only picks up rm -rf / !
Golden Grenadier In theory, the CueCat could have done that (if it supports characters instead of just numbers), but the author of the book/webpage would have to include the barcodes
A camera and QR code can do that nowadays
I found one of these helping clean my grandma's "computer" room (it was only one 90's dell) the C was almost completely scratched off and the wiring had started to fray. Didn't want to plug it into my own computer, but it's was cool to see
I have about 30 still packeged cue cats I got from raidio shack
Sell them on eBay.
pinpointrabbit 2 Memories! Somewhere in storage, I have a couple unopened ones in both ps/2 & usb. They kept cost-optimizing the design to the point they'd only scan perfect codes, on a good day. The older ones were more reliable.
I have three of the ps/2 types ... didn't even know they'd made a USB version until I saw this video, etc. "Of course" I use I use ps/2 type perfectly fine with a ps/2 to USB adapter.
You could probably sell them for quite a bit of money... keep one tho
Jack Gray
you get a tenner p pc .... more than I would have reckoned! I'm surprised
Throughout my life my family owned a Radioshack & Western Auto store, they would always celebrate something new they got in which was all the time. I remember growing up seeing all kinds of cool and whacky gizmos like the desk fan with led lights on the blades to form advertising messages (Cool as hell in the 90's) or the telemarketer zapper which really didn't work. But yea I remember this, we had one and my overly exciting dad boasted about this new gizmo for days and weeks saying it was going to be the pinnacle of the future.He would always look for ways to use it but in reality we rarely ever used it, it just sat there lol but when you were bored it was cool to look at. I remember this well. I didn't know about modding and all that stuff back then but probably for the best as he would have been devastated had I opened up and modified this shiny new computer accessory of the future lol. This video brings back so much nostalgia not just of the CueCat but also of the glory days of RadioShack and the often crazy things they would get in or new ideas they'd try out that inevitably end up all over not just our house but his business. (Yea he put the cue cat on all of the work computers at western auto/radioshack) and put the LED fan mentioned earlier on a specially built shelf above the entrance/exit doors.
3:37 i translated that QR code and it says Version 2
3:37 i scan the qr code and its said version 2
Some discussions in the comments made me think of some similar devices, one of which I had as a kid: a line of toys called Scannerz, which scanned barcodes and did some magic with the data to catch monsters.
2:33 Hey, that is interesting
How could one use barcode scanner in cataloging books or cds?
Instead of manually cataloguing by typing in book/CD credentials, one could simply scan the bar code on the item and log it that way, usually with the help of some third-party software.
The barcode on a book generally contains the ISBN, which is a unique identifier for the book. Given the ISBN, you can look up all the other details of the book (title, author, etc.)
I bought a cue cat second-hand many years ago because I couldn't afford a legitimate scanner for my business...those were the days.
Cuecat also had an "audio cue" component. I remember them on NBC, I think, maybe around the time of the Olympics, or just on random commercials. You'd hear a bong on tv; I think the cuecat was hooked up to the sound card and keyboard too, and then it would load up a website.
"being a decade too early"
everything has to be invented sometime.
I have one of those and I’m only 16 lol. We used them to scan normal barcodes in the library of my old school. But I never knew that there were special codes for them and everything so that’s cool to learn!
I got a female Luxray from the qr code you showed in the video, lol.
Wait what?!
Did Nintendo look at Scannerz and say "we're big enough and ugly enough to copy what they're doing and say they copied us instead"?
I had one before it went defunct. Then I bought a bag of them for $1 at a flea market to homebrew with and never did.
I used to have a CueCat. I remember my local newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, at the time had cue codes on all their articles. I thought that was a pretty neat idea, since you could scan the cuecode link and pull up a link to that article in the paper. I was pretty young when they were around, so I don't exactly remember what usefulness you gained by having a link to the paper's article. I guess it made it easier to email the link & share it or comment on it. I tried it once & thought it was a neat idea, but never used it again. While my elderly father who was the only one in the household who read the paper never used it, so I guess that's why it was pretty much a flop. There was no real incentive to use it, so no one did. Plus that was right around the time of the dot com crash, so everything was failing. Just another contraption nobody really needed so nobody really used it.
The usefulness was collecting customer data. =)
I used a Cuecat for years to keep track of a few different things.... Long forgotten though
2000: you're taking my data! my privacy! unacceptable!
2017: yeah you owe them your data. freeloader!
my how times have changed
My initial reaction was "Oh, a nifty forgotten item that looks like a cat? These must have gotten rare and expensive for tech collectors..." And then I checked ebay. They're literally being sold by the hundreds in giant lots. So even for novelty's sake or collectability, they're useless.
What's the name of the music that plays at 1:51?
I got one from Wired back in the day. I could never get it to work.
I own this but I bought it last year. It works wonders as a book cataloguer. I dont know why they didn't sell it as a Barcode Scanner.
i am using a qr code scanner, it says to buy premium to scan cues
just bought a cuecat to properly catalogue my cd collection. thank you!
I remember seeing one of those things many years ago, wasn't sure what it did. Thanks for making this.
Everyone's a goddamned hacker until they actually put work into something they want to monetize....Then it's all WHOAAA SLOW DOWN BUDDY.
HAHA! OH MAN! I'm old and remember using these in high school. We absolutely used these for sorting things, not for buying products.
Given the practices of Google and Facebook, the privacy concerns with Cuecat are positively quaint.
What mic did you use before and now?
Why does the QR code say "version 2"?
I''m surprised you didn't mention what happened to the creator of the Cue Cat, Dave Matthews, after the product flopped (forming the pop music band, "The Dave Matthews band")
Wish you would show the pictures with actual information longer instead of random pink screens...
Hawk_ Eye would be nice to have it long enough to read it
Holy shit you just awoke in me some nostalgia I didn't even know was buried in my memories.
I wanted one, but there were gone from the shack before I got one. I wound up buying a different bar code scanner but it was like $150 for the scanner and software. Kind of a rip off
I wonder if QR codes can also send data personal data and If there are ways we can check or prevent it?
So that's what this thing is. My dad had it in a box with everything in it as if it had never been used. I thought it was a weird mouse. XD
My friend has one of these that is brand new as well. I thought it was a mouse pen thing at first until I started reading the box.
What I want to know is: could you mod the Cuecat to read QR code?
Is he using the same smartphone photo in every video ?
I think we had one of these and I was mad it never scanned normal barcodes
It did scan normal barcodes. Sort of. Those bar codes had to be in our database. It just took a LONG time to add. Companies would pay to get their barcodes added and got moved to the front of the line in being entered.
I have a cuecat, somewhere here. They were giving them away for free. I used it a few times to see how it worked.
I own this! I bought it for 1€ at the thrift store last year. I like DIY projects and just interesting tech (I'm a software developer) so I figured I'd try and see if I could somehow use it, especially since I googled it while at the store and the fact that it was called one of the worst tech products just made it a must buy! Still haven't figured out what to do with it or how to incorporate it into my existing projects, but it's appearance alone is worth the euro.
Crazy that this video was posted on the 16th of December in 2016, because that's probably within 3 days of when I bought it. I was doing some Christmas shopping at thrift stores and couldn't resist buying some old tech for myself as well.
Have one in a drawer and remember seeing the ads for it on tv. Got it from a friend.
1:05 So it was like a precursor to QR-codes, except
a) It needed a special device connected to a full-size PC, rather than being able to use the camera built into every smartphone
b) They never thought of putting it into anything beyond the printed page--e.g. shop windows, rears of vehicles, building/place signs and all those other weird places you can find QR-codes.
Had a nice chuckle at the mod being referred to as "declawing".
I had one of these, that i saw in an infomerical in the middle of the night. They touted it by how you can scan UPC codes on any product so you can get more information about it. Or if it didn't know what the bar code was it will ask you to tell it what it was that was just scanned. So from day 1 (for me) they let you use any kind of bar code.. I've never seen catalogs with Cue Codes like in this video. I think i still have my Cue cat but the software it came with won't work in modern Windows.
i almost feel bad for them. they had a pretty damned good idea. it was like qr codes. and honestly i think it would've had a niche if they just sold it as a "home barcode scanner" and bundled it with some barcode generation/printing and database software that for instance had a 'shareware' stage that went into an 'ad supported' stage that could be upgraded to a 'ad-free' mode if you bought the license. Alas, the time is past...
Hello, Expand Dong.
UNKNOWNGAM3r Don't be dong
UNKNOWNGAM3r Hey there.
UNKNOWNGAM3r joel reference?
Serious question, do people actually use QR codes either? I've done it like 3 times on my phone for the novelty of it, but yeah, otherwise I just automatically type in the address I want or do a search. I just don't think the general premise/technology solves a real 'problem.'
man, i forgot about this thing. i wonder if i still have it in a box somewhere.
If you came of age in the era of camera phones with multi-megapixels CCD's you can't appreciate what a trip it was to get a FREE barcode scanner at Radio Shack. Are the time we were paying at least $200 for a handheld peripheral. This thing plugged inline with your keyboard and was ridiculously easy to decode. It used an encoding scheme similar to the UUE encoding used to embed digital enclosures (such as phitographs) in emails. Add a "CCscan" function into your software et voila! Instant UPC scanner for an on-the-cheap point of sale system!
My family owned and used a CueCat regularly until the service shut down.
I've never managed to get a qr reader to work! I think am I tilting my phone? Am I not square on? Anyway I'd just rather type the url in.
My dad picked one up sometime ago. I found in an old box full of what he called, "old junk"! We couldn't even figure out how or why it existed! XP
I think one of these is still sitting somewhere in my parent's house. Totally forgot about it, but I do recall getting one for free so I was ecstatic at the time about it. Used it for a few days and then forgot about it. Funny what you find on youtube these days.
Why did you keep using a code that just says "Version 2?"
Hey Dave Matthews, where's your band? ;P
Something I saw when I went to California once was a board advertising something that, aswell as having a qr code, had nfc tag to go to the link by tapping your Android phone to it.
I got a free cue cat from radio shack. It scanned ALL barcodes. In fact, I have never even seen those slanted barcodes.
I remember this! We had oneeeee
My dad had a few of these from when he worked at Radioshack. He helped give them away.
I got mine from radio shack. I remember It showed me codes I scanned in other upc codes. You also forgot another thing they did. It also came with a free 10'(?) Audio cord. It would let the software listen for specific tones on TV a commercial or show might play that were an audio version of scanning a code.
Yep, WFAA in Dallas was touting this all the time... at the time.
Whoah, I was just looking at a slip of paper with this companies name on it, that I came across in an old wire bin. Had never heard of the company but now I come across this.
Had one back in the day, the PS/2 version from Radio Shack It never saw any use though, as the only function it served at the time was to scan product numbers from the Radio Shack catalogs. I didn't shop there too often and wasn't so lazy that I couldn't type in the code myself.