How does the MCA SDK emulate MCA hardware?
The MCA SDK provides emulation of hardware peripherals, and button controls to enable software development on application developers’ workstations. Emulation is achieved by replacing the device specific communication modules, called plug-ins with a loopback version. In general when the MCA software wants to communicate with a peripheral device, it makes a call to the device through the plug-in, which allows just a plug-in to be replaced if hardware is replaced. The loopback then just reads from a configuration file, and returns barcodes or RFID tag data which it reads from a file, but in the exact same manner that the device plug-in would return real data. Button presses can also be simulated with specific keyboard key combinations. See number 10 for more details. Camera is the only device currently, for which the SDK doesn’t provide emulation. Instead it is set up to run with a USB connected camera on a workstation. See number 24 for more information.
