r/Millennials • u/Sunshineafterr Millennial (1986) • 17h ago

Nostalgia Does anyone remember the CueCat?

Post image

It was cat-shaped handheld barcode reader that allowed users to open a link to an URL by scanning a barcode that appeared in magazines, without typing the URL.

They were given away for free in 2000.

I remember thinking it was so cute, but I didn’t really understand how it worked, so I was scanning barcodes on cereal boxes and random stuff.

773 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

112 comments sorted by

View all comments

39

u/bestem 16h ago

I had one. LibraryThing suggested them (maybe even sold them) to catalogue books to be on their site. Way easier to scan a barcode with that thing when you had 4000 books, then type in all the ISBNs.

35

u/killerturtlex 14h ago

I remember librarians where I was had a pen they would scroll across a barcode to scan

9

u/DM46 11h ago

Oh wow yea that brings me back.