SureStore Library: How to write barcode labels?

[Jens Ebert]

The SureStore E Tape Library can read barcode labels on the DLT-tapes. How can I write these labels, which tools can you recommend?

Thany you,
Jens

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi,

Have a look at "The Unix Barcode Generator"
This one works pretty well.
The unregistered version scrambles barcodes from time to time but remains usable.

Registration fee is about $150 if I remember well.


http://www.kerkloh.de/index_e.htm

Cheers,

Dan

[Dave Wherry]

Jens,
How often do you need to print bar codes and do you need different ones?
I worked at a place where we had a STK library and we tried printing our own lables. After struggling with it for over a month we found they use a proprietary lable and the license to print them yourself was ridiculous. It was a waste of our time and money.
From Dan's reply it looks like the SureStore libraries are more forgiving. $150 isn't bad at all.
You can also just order lables from Lowery which I think is easier. Their hours are Monday-Friday 8am-5pm CST. US number is 800-429-7722. International number is 651-429-7722.

[wyan lowe]

we made our own barcode labels using freeware font in win95
http://edvmix3.ub.tu-berlin.de/~skalweit/software/barcode/3of9.html

or search any internet search engine for "3of9" and "barcode font"
after you install/copy the font into the windows/fonts(?) directory, you can access the font in an app like excel or word....

then you can do some pretty formatting to make it the size that would fit in the DLT...
we used HP DLT libraries - works fine under omniback v3...

[Kevin Ernst]

Jens:

GNU 'barcode' is a free and open-source barcode generator which we used to create sheets of DLT barcode labels for our ADIC tape library. (They work great, too!) It took some effort to calculate the right layout (grid size, internal margins, and whatnot), though, so I wouldn't really recommend it if you don't like math...

...or if you're squeamish about compiling programs from source. Since it's distributed in source code format, you'll need to compile it for your chosen platform. We compiled on Linux and even under the Cygwin environment on NT, so hopefully you wouldn't have any problems under HP-UX. If you're stuck with the built-in C compiler, you might want to download the GNU development tools (gcc, binutils, make) from your local HP-UX Software and Porting Archive (the German mirror site is http://hpux.asknet.de ).

If you don't already have a software development environment set up, that might be a little too much effort for a few barcodes. In the US, there are several companies which can print a series of 200 barcodes (with color-coded human-readable representations) for about $40-50 USD. They may ship internationally, or you may have resellers in your area which can provide a similar service. Several of these in the US are http://www.disk-o-tape.com , http://www.datawarelabels.com , and http://www.datalinkassoc.com.

If you're interested in going the GNU barcode route, e-mail me at kernst@hasbro.com and I'll send you the numbers we used for the layouts, and some scripts we wrote to do the dirty work.

[Kevin Ernst]

Sorry, I forgot to mention *where* you can get GNU barcode! There's more information on the software, and a list of mirror sites at http://www.gnu.org/software/barcode .

Our Scalar 1000 library uses a regular 3-of-9 (a.k.a. Code 39) barcode with no check digit. We discovered this by using a programmable wedge barcode reader and testing each of the barcode symbologies it supports, one at a time, against the DLT barcode labels until we got a read.

I later found out that the information was listed in an appendix of the tape library's user guide. Doh! You should probably check there first to see which barcode symbology your library uses.