I am a magician living and working in Las Vegas. Could someone please direct me as to what I would need to accomplish this. The effect is a spectator puts there drivers license face down on a table. Through unknown means the magician is able to tell the spectator their drivers license number.
The secret is I am able to read the barcode on the back of the license. At present I have to consult a cheat sheet to tell them the number. I now am looking to build a device. Here is what I need:
A small electronic device straped to my sleeve inside my shirt. There should be two small buttons on the device to enter the binary data (1 and 0) represented by the black and white lines I see on the persons license. Once the data is entered I need the device to silently vibrate the real numbers to me as I cannot convert these long binary 11 digit codes to numbers. There are 99 different numbers with 99 different 11 digit binary codes. (http://www.barcodeisland.com/code128.phtml). I do have a chart already that tells me that 11001101100 represents the number 01 for example. Can anyone please direct me as to what I need?

 

Nice idea!

I'm sorry I now know the secret :o)

I think this would be quite easy to create; A PIC12F629 microcontroller, a few resistors, transistor would be all that is required on a PCB. Using surface mount components you could have the PCB about the size of a postage stamp.

contact me by email and I may be able to help you out.

Mike.

mikehibbett [@] oceanfree [.] net

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It seems a bit more complicated because the bar code has to be remotely read. Perhaps an IR laser scan and opto receiver?

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>It seems a bit more complicated because the bar code has to be remotely read

I assumed from what cbounds30 wrote is that they can read the elemets of the barcode by sight. Not an impossible task, depending on the code used. I haven't seen a US style driving licence so cannot say yet.

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Cbounds30, you should avoid Idahoans. I'll guarantee you won't be able to read the barcode "manually". It's a huge 2-dimensional array. (The amount of data is huge - the physical size is small).

EDIT: It looks like this (from Arizona, I think): (this isn't mine)
(Well- unless it's the bars on the ends.)

Attached Images

dlback.jpg (46.4 KB, 389 views)

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Ron

 

My license (Illinois) has a similar 2-D array on the back, except instead of 10 data blocks (like the example), mine has 12 blocks. I don't believe it's going to be easy to fashion a covert device to pull this off ...
Ron, the end bars on your example and on my license are the same.
JB

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That's an amazing coincidence! You and I and the guy from Arizona all have exactly the same license number!
Either that, or our magician is going to need to find another trick...

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Ron

 

Those are 2d barcodes and no I cannot read those. The main reason for this is a Gig I am doing in texas! Texas uses code128 barcodes to encode the DL.

 

Not that any of us checked Nevada license standards, but if they had, this statement would've been a little misleading.
Here is a useful web site for use in future gig planning.

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Ron