OT: Symbol barcode emits two lasers, not one.

[Brian Kelsay]

>Does anyone know what causes a laser scanner
>to emit two laser beams? It's probably been dropped,
>but I'm curious to know if there is a way to open
>the case and realign something.

Ones I used to use in the shipping industry read 2-D barcodes, which included package routing info, 
address, shipper, contents, etc.   I think it could store over 256 characters.   Look here: 
http://www.adams1.com/pub/russadam/stack.html  for more info.  I think we used the Data Matrix or 
PDF417, I forget which.

If the scanner was dropped, you could have a mirror out of alignment or a broken mirror or prism.  
The scanner users used to just bang them on the side of a package until they started working again. 
 Oh yeah, that'll fix it.   Wires used to break inside the cable casing all the time too.  Lot of 
abuse can occur inside a package hub.  You should have seen the some of the damage to handheld 
scanners the drivers carried.  Same as the FedEx ones, in fact my old Co. merged w/ FedEx.  I had 
the lucky task of reprogramming the scanners and sending off the broken ones.

Brian Kelsay