or whatever that thing was called (Cue Cat)? This was the device that was being given away free by everyone and his uncle, notably wired magazine and Radioshack, several years ago. It plugged into your USB port or your PS2 port, depending on which model you had, looked vaguely like a mouse laid flat out (the furry kind, not the computer kind), and let you scan bar codes into your computer. The idea behind it was everyone would start printing bar codes on everything, in ads, on your jeans, on the beans in your soup, whatever, and you could scan them with your cue cat and get useful information. Of course, of the number of problems with this concept, the chief one was, no one wanted even more marketing messages bombarding them, which was the agenda behind the device. The company died a well-deserved death, yay!

But…it turns out these cue cats can be useful on other contexts. Small mom and pop retailers, used to spending money on bar code readers, discovered that with the appropriate software, quickly kicked out by hackers, they could use them as free barcode readers, which had all kinds of uses for businesses. So a device that was for a brief period of time as common as an AOL disk disappeared. You can still buy them on ebay, but they’re a little pricey for a device that was free (about $8-9 before shipping).

Here’s where you come in. Do you have one? I have need of about 4-5 of them. It turns out they can also be turned into a recharge/source of power device for PDA’s, with a connector from Radio Shack and a little soldering. I am especially wanting USB models since I have tracked down a PS2 model already and the USB models can be used on my mac. So. If you send me your cue cat, I will paypal you $5 plus the shipping. Pretty simple deal, I save $5 or so, and you get a little lucre for that pos mouse thingy wired magazine sent you a few years ago. Or if you’re generous, you could just give it to me. Either way, I covet them. First 5 cue cat holders to apply get the cash. Speak up!