BARCODES! No one cares about 'em. Yet they were once exciting, cutting edge tech. Heck, old computer magazines often had entire sections dedicated to UPC scanning and software. So I finally got a PC barcode reader kit from 1994 and used it with some POS applications! And Duke 3D.
I got multiple CueCats from RadioShack for free. You can modify them to output without encryption or use python code to output to usable output. I have a couple ones that have been converted and have USB plug too.