Printer types (mods?), 1/2D barcode "imaging" and evolution,

[Embresa Existia]

Hello I arived at your group after having discovered this project which I discovered while looking for a linux (desktop) printer driver for my Neo's Thermal Printer
I have an "older" (but purchased NIB) Neo's Thermal Printer..in the referred GitHub repository, the blog, and list of components etc, links are provided for printers associated with the Ardino/RPi platforms... in fact one one photo shows non-RS232 wiring coming from the printer
My questions are..
1. can I use my printer (RS232 I/O) or not..
2. I'm interested primarily in 1 & 2D barcode (output (printing/store/validate/alter/read/scan/process) how and where do I add the code(ing) (adapt java code, add section to html/css, adapt python library?) for that?
3. Can I port this project to, say, an embedded Linux, Android platform and would the end-point hardware architecture (ARM vs X86, etc) have any impact on development scope? Is it possible to make this hardware "agnostic"? And what would be the recommended language (C+/C#, H, python, jython, Java, etc) OR is there already such a project/library/other  already existing? if so can someone please forward me the link?
4. Anyone interested in helping with these objectives and changing the retail transaction and incentivized media sectors like MTV did for the music industry, Like Apple did for the PC, Like Polaroid did for photography, Like Google did for search engines. Like Facbook did for social media, like Napster did for (to? lol) the music industry? You get it...basicaqlly we can change it and OWN it...
Thank you all for your time and consideration in advance. Have a Sustainable weekend!
Trevor Cutrer

[James Adam]

Hi Trevor,

I’ll try to answer your questions as best as I can:

On Saturday, 28 June 2014 at 01:34, Embresa Existia wrote:
> 1. can I use my printer (RS232 I/O) or not..
>

You can use basically any printer that is capable of bitmap output, with the caveat that you may need to have a small amount of custom software developed for it in order for our software to output the right commands to control your printer. Most of the software is printer-agnostic, with the exception of a set of small, printer-specific ‘print processor’ modules that translate bitmaps into printer command codes.

> 2. I'm interested primarily in 1 & 2D barcode (output (printing/store/validate/alter/read/scan/process) how and where do I add the code(ing) (adapt java code, add section to html/css, adapt python library?) for that?
>

The input format for our software is HTML, CSS and images, so if you’re able to generate your barcodes as part of some HTML content, then that should be sufficient to getting them printed. Generating the HTML itself is outside of the scope of this software; that would be what you’ll see referred to as a “content service” in the wiki (e.g. https://github.com/exciting-io/printer/wiki/Building-content-services).

> 3. Can I port this project to, say, an embedded Linux, Android platform and would the end-point hardware architecture (ARM vs X86, etc) have any impact on development scope? Is it possible to make this hardware "agnostic"? And what would be the recommended language (C+/C#, H, python, jython, Java, etc) OR is there already such a project/library/other already existing? if so can someone please forward me the link?
>

The end point hardware really doesn’t matter; at the moment we have code that runs on Arduino and Raspberry Pi, but anything that can connect to the network (via ethernet, wifi or anything else) and reliably download some data and stream it (typically via a serial connection) to a printer device would work fine. There’s no recommended language. The actual logic that needs to be implemented is very simple and should be possible on basically any platform that can establish a network connection.

> 4. Anyone interested in helping with these objectives and changing the retail transaction and incentivized media sectors like MTV did for the music industry, Like Apple did for the PC, Like Polaroid did for photography, Like Google did for search engines. Like Facbook did for social media, like Napster did for (to? lol) the music industry? You get it...basicaqlly we can change it and OWN it...

This isn’t a question I can answer :)

I hope that’s useful. If you have any specific questions leading on from this, I’ll try to help.

— James