Once upon a time I got a CueCat to catalogue my book collection on a (probably now defunct) Web2.0 service. This was before smartphones and apps, and before I had even a laptop. At the time it felt retro-cool and really did help me speed things up in that task. At the time, I had to box up most of my books and CDs for storage, but I wanted an easy way to know in which box each thing was. I think I even had plans to use it with my CD collection next, but building the backend for turning barcodes back into a reference to a playable directory of ripped files turned out to be too much trouble. Could still be doable if you could query a Jellyfin or Plex database based on UPC codes. Now we all just yell into the void and hope the nearest "AI" hears us.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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I also have a CueCat! I ordered it back in the 90s when it was still being advertised!
I got multiple CueCats from RadioShack for free. You can modify them to output without encryption or use python code to output to usable output. I have a couple ones that have been converted and have USB plug too.
Yes, all the computer-paper interfaces are cool IMHO. That DataMatrix and QR are mainstream now I mostly like too.
What I don't like is the wide reliance upon open Internet connectivity, and even worse, upon services in it.