Thoughts on drum scanners for scanning microfiche.
The best scanners are supposed to be drum scanners.
***WARNING more than you ever want to know about film scanners***
I was once approached by a printing prepress company that used drum scanners
that wanted to diversify and scan 14 X 17 inch x-ray film for teleradiology.
Here is a little of what they said about drum scanners.
1. They were accustomed to images that were each 1-6 GB.
2. They do the printing of the "slicks" inside the Sunday papers.
3. Each color is on a separate negative.
4. Three colors and black.
5. They use about 3000-8000 dpi, real not interpolated resolution.
6. The negative film is mounted on a clear glass tube.
7. There is a standard light source inside the tube.
8. The tube spins on air bearings and a detector system progresses along the
length of the tube measuring the light transmittance of each point in the
negative.
9. Transmittance is much more accurate than reflectance.
10. This is not a rapid process. However it is very accurate.
11. Similar systems are used for scanning aerial photographs and magazine
printing negatives.
12. Mounting the negative on the drum is very important, any skew will
distort the image when the colors are overlaid. This step is very time
consuming.
13. I looked into building a simpler version, and determined that the higher
the speed of the scan the lower the quality. We needed speed and high
quality
14. Now if you want a current model SCSI scanner that could scan microfiche,
I suggest a mammography film scanner. High resolution and relatively
speedy, however high cost. The shape of the little microcalcifications in a
mammogram are very hard to see with anything less than 10 micron spot size
scanner. The images are about 5K X 5K over a 8 X 10 inch area.
Other scanning systems.
Dupont made a laser scanning system for x-ray films, that was the size of a
washing machine, about 8 years ago that used a laser beam and would scan a
14 X 17 inch film in 10 seconds and produced a 4K X 4K image. You dropped
in the film and the image was scanned and then the film dropped out.
However it took the PDP-11 controlling the scanner about 1 minute to
transfer the image to a MicroVAX II which then transferred the image via
decnet to another MicroVAX II controlling a display. Lots of failure
points, the hardware was solid, the software was unable to detect and retry
simple timeouts. Especially neat when trying to send images across Kansas
on POTS lines during spring weather.
Scanners for aperture cards may be another option.
Mike
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
All scanned out.
* There are also four "Avalon" boards
* which are quad width, have a Mot 88K
* processor on them, something like a
* 4MB daughter card, one edge connector
* (26 pin) and a couple of LEDs. No clue
* what these do.
Avalon made Q-bus and Unibus co-processors for special applications.
As of a couple of years ago, you could get Unibus Alpha CPU boards from
them, if your wallet was thick enough :-).
* A couple of Sigma Q-bus extenders (labels inside say "do not put a CPU in
* this rack"
Because they're serpentine ABAB all the way through. If you put a CPU
board with PMI stuff on its CD slots, those PMI signals get mixed with the
Q-bus signals and things don't work. At worst, the magic smoke comes out.
[Kennedy 9400]
*for most of its life. Tony or anyone else, is there a way to power this up
*without connecting it up and seeing if it can load a tape?
Yeah, turn it on, put in a tape, hit load!
*I've also got a Emulex quad width board that looks like an SMD controller,
*part number is: QD3510206.
Yeah, that's one of their later SMD controllers. Pretty smart - IIRC
it actually has a 68020 on-board!
Tim.
> Yes. The HP pad is felt-covered foam from the looks of things, but plain
> felt might well work well enough to get the data off the tape (which,
> honestly, is all I care about at the moment).
>
> Next job is to find suitable felt. The stuff sold by craft shops is too
> thin. Maybe a musical instrument repairer place or something?
Since the tape itself is the same size as that of a compact casstte(tm),
might I suggest butchering am otherwise un-needed unit, and slice the
pad off the comparable leaf spring? As to the proper cement to use, I
leave that to you...
regards,
-dq
> On Thu, 3 Aug 2000, David Gesswein wrote:
> > When I first spin up the pack I run a program which quickly seeks seeks
> > through each track and then repeats.
> >...
>
> Aaron Nabil:
> I'd routinely (on other drives, not specifically an RK05) kill the servo
> and manually move the head actuator across the disk to do the same thing.
>
Watch out on the RK05, the power fail battery seems to still unload the
heads on power fail even if that switch is off. If your finger is in the
way the head positioner will win. Never put your finger/tools where unexpeced
motion can get it (insert all the other obvious warning here). Also if you
flip the switch back on when the heads are loaded the servo can get confused
and go full steam ahead to the end of travel. This didn't seem to harm
anything but did make me jump. A quick snap of the switch may help prevent
this but I didn't try to verify.
Just a real quick FYI for everyone that has sent me a message about the
computers I'm wanting to get rid of. A combo of real life and work has just
kicked in with a vengence, I don't think I'm going to have time to go
through and look at the messages until next week sometime.
Basically just wanted people to know that I'm not ignoring them. But if it
wasn't for remote access to my mail, I wouldn't even be seeing them till
next week...
Zane
I received this email this morning.
============ Begin Paste ============
"Dear Sir,
I will soon take a new position at the University of T"ubingen,
Germany.
The department has still an analog computer build by "Electronic
Associates Inc.", Type EAI 2000 which was purchased in the mid seventies
and seems to be ready to work. The original handbooks are also
available.
I have no further use for this device and therefore I am trying to find
a museum or a collector who is interested in this machine. Any
suggestions would be welcome."
=========== End Paste ===============
This computer is located at the Max-Planck-Institutes in Tuebingen,
about 40 km from Stuttgart.
I don't have any information about this model, so I have no idea how
large this computer may be. I'm leaving it up to intereted parties to
check this out. If someone in Germany is interested in this computer
or is willing to check it out and arrange shipping for someone else,
please contact me. I'll pass your name along and send you the email
address. I'm hoping to just pass one name along, hopefully someone
local. But if you are interested but not local, email me anyway.
You maybe you will be the closest.
This may be a decktop unit, but I really doubt it. In the 70's, EAI
was moving more to hybrid computers, so this computer MAYBE one that
can be interfaced to a digital computer, I just don't know.
I don't have any interest in this computer because of the cost of
shipping to California.
--Doug
====================================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com (work)
Sr. Software Eng. mranalog(a)home.com (home)
Press Start Inc. http://www.pressstart.com
Sunnyvale,CA
Curator
Analog Computer Museum and History Center
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog
====================================================
I came across a deliciously mysterious computer today in a local thrift
store.
I took the following photos of it in various states of undress:
http://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-1.jpghttp://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-2.jpghttp://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-3.jpghttp://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-4.jpghttp://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-5.jpghttp://www.siconic.com/crap/BMC-6.jpg
It's a machine made by OKI of Japan (the same company apparently that made
the Okidata printer line). It's called the Small Computer Model 10 (as
indicated by the photo of the nameplate). At first I thought it was just
some dumb terminal until I started looking closer at it and discovered it
was indeed a computer.
Upon examining the innards I found that it has a Z80 processor and seems
to be circa 1982. I couldn't tell how much RAM it had because the chips
are all funky Japanese types. My guess would be 32K-64K.
As one can see from the photos, it incorporates a dot matrix printer in
the main unit. If you've got one to compare to, the machine is almost
exactly the same dimensions as a Sol-20 (and just as heavy). It has an
expansion bus inside, and two cards are plugged in: a floppy drive
controller (marked 5-FDD) and some sort of CRT interface (marked C-CRT,
probably color CRT).
The right-hand side has three DIN connectors, labelled L-PEN (lightpen),
TV (probably an RF connector), A-CMT (?). Finally, there is a DB-25
RS-232C connector.
The left-hand side features the power switch and two momentary buttons,
one marked IPL and the other NMI.
I was hoping when I plugged the machine in I would get output to the
printer but no go. I tried blindly typing some BASIC commands like LPRINT
but that had no effect. When it first turns on, there is a 3 second beep
that comes out of the speaker. If I hit the IPL button it seems to reset
the machine: there's a moment of about 3 seconds after pushing the button
where nothing happens but then the speaker beeps for about 3 seconds
again.
I tried pressing various keys (like HARD COPY) but could not get any
action out of the printer. I imagine it wants to be connected to a CRT.
I didn't know at the time to look for a CRT so I'll probably go back
tomorrow to check around. I'm also going to check for any floppy drives
that might go with it.
I'd like to try to hook it up to a TV but I don't know what pins I should
use. I have a working scope but it's huge, old and is at my warehouse.
What would be a good way to try to determine which pins carry the signal?
Any help or info would be appreciated.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1
San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
One more note, this from the Emulex marketing sheet on the CS21: "Controller
Interface: 2 50-conductor flat cables, compatible with DEC's H317
distribution panel." The standard Emulex distrib. panel for it is a CP22,
btw.. damn I pitched one of these a few months ago...
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
For the cleaning of dirty packs I use a lazy susan (rotating table) and
put the pack on it. This allows me to rotate it and view a various angles
to look for dust and other defects. If you put a light at the correct
angle dust will show up much better.
I use the alcohol to clean disks like others have said and also use the
canned "compressed air" dust off to blow the dust off. Make sure you squirt
the first bit away from the disk in case some of the liquid comes out. I
also use a photo/lens brush to remove the stubborn dust. Depending on
house dust level you may have trouble getting it all off. Running a
air cleaner or filtered fan in a closed room can cut the airborne dust down.
If the packs may of been dropped at some time you need to watch out for
them being bent. Most lazy susan will have a lot of play so may not
allow you to see. If you have the top of the drive off and watch the
shadows on the pack from the head positioner assembly they will move if
the pack is bent. Just blip the run switch for a short time to get a slow
rotation or rotate by hand.
You should also check that the battery pack is still good. It is a
rechargable nicad and will go bad after a while. Measure with a load
after charging if needed. This is used to retract the heads if power
is lost. It is located on the left side near the back.
I have various maintenance information for the RK05 available at
http://www.pdp8.net/query_docs/query.shtml
RK05 docs:
http://www.pdp8.net/pdp8cgi/query_docs/query.pl?Search=rk05&stype=Partial+W…
This search/convert to PDF is new so let me know if you have problems.
David Gesswein
http://www.pdp8.net/ -- Old computers with blinkenlights
