Hello ard_newbie! Thank you for your interest in this post. Yes 10 questions in a single post is definitely an overkill but I really wanted all of these points to be covered in a single thread instead of starting multiple threads or going to multiple threads and posting there!
As for the chip, this is a TCD1304 AP chip that I rigged from the bar code scanner. The data sheet is found here-
http://www.spectralproducts.com/pdf/TCD1304.pdf
The exact total elements coming out of the chip are 3694 and not 3800 as I had erroneously mentioned.