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I don't know how many people remember this, but this reminds me of a technology in the mid-to-early 80s where computer magazines offered a gigantic QR-like code that could be scanned (if you bought the device) so that you wouldn't have to spend any time typing in the BASIC source code.


Oscar Databar: http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/hardware/oscar/oscar.html

Software was published via standard one-dimensional bar codes, and instead of typing in the code from a book or magazine, you'd manually scan line after line of barcodes using a specially designed hand scanner.


That's a good find. The one I was thinking about that appeared in Apple ][ mags was the Cauzin Softstrip:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauzin_Softstrip


This reminds me of one thing

There was this small Casio musical keyboard at home, bought in the 80s (made in Japan I think)

It came with a scanning pen, you could scan a song (from a book) made up of several barcodes (just like the links posted here) and it would play the song.




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