realprogrammers.com
Real Programmers: Projects: Barcode -- by hackers, for hackers
http://realprogrammers.com/projects/barcode
This is the start of an investigation into scanning barcodes and creating online databases of information in the manner of FreeDB. Free, open clone of CDDB) where people independently submit information. Here is a simple perl program to read the serial port and convert an EAN (the 13-digit barcode on the back of most books) into an Amazon URL: reader.pl. It features: configuring the serial port for use with a serial scanner, conversion of EANs into ISBNs, and how to write to the X clipboard.