[Koha-devel] RFC: support for 3M RFID reader 810 in koha

[Dobrica Pavlinusic]

Last week I was playing with reverse engineering protocol of 3M 810
RFID reader to make it integrated with our Koha installation.

Currently I understand enough protocol to detect and read tags, but
programming and blanking is just a matter of (free) time.

Current source code (if anybody wants to take a look) is available at:

http://svn.rot13.org/index.cgi/RFID

Now I'm in stage where I would love to integrate it in Koha, so I'm
seeking for feedback.

Since machines on which reader is connected are Windows, and data which
can be gathered are usable only when paired with data from Koha, I have
two possible solutions:

1) Connect RFID reader serial port to some kind of Windows service
(suggestions welcomed!) which would allow my perl script to connect it over
network and drive reader (this has additional benefit that all pages in web
browser come from my Koha server, so I don't have problem with same origin
policy in browser).

2) install perl on windows and run reader driver there, integrating with
Koha using frame set (one frame Koha window, another frame reader)
This would require to have some kind of REST API for Koha which I could
use from JavaScript within browser.

I would like to support following user interaction with Koha (and
reader):

* putting book on RFID reader opens it's record in Koha (this would
  probably require some kind of long-poll from browser to Koha so that
  server can update browser window as soon as RFID tag is detected)

* button which allows you re-program RFID tag of book on reader by
  clicking on button beside bar-code in Koha interface.
  Sound indication would provide feedback about finish of programming.

I would prefer solution (1), but solution (2) would allow me to use
firefox -remove to change browser URL and I would be able to generate
sound notification easily (without some kind of flash which would be
needed to make sound identification work in first possible solution)

However, making less moving parts on 30 machines which have reader
connected to them seems like good enough reason to move all logic to
server driven readers.

I could probably write few more pages about this, but this might be
enough for this message. Your comments are greatly appreciated :-)

-- 
Dobrica Pavlinusic               2share!2flame            dpavlin at rot13.org
Unix addict. Internet consultant.             http://www.rot13.org/~dpavlin