12 Jan
2017
12 Jan
'17
1:29 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 3:08 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
$15,000 for a used Mekel microfiche scanner in the
early-2000's
I have a Mekel M565 and an M525, with the greyscale interface card,
sitting in my office. They were a parting gift from my boss when we closed
the old company down. They get periodic use, though the scan element on
the 565 has seen better days.
It turned out to be just past prototype stage, was missing the pneumatic
fiche handler
and never really got it working at production volumes. The small number of
fiche scans
on bitsavers from around then was the sum total of the output.
I never found the pneumatic loader to be reliable enough to be useful.
Even when we were running our 565 eight hours a day, we hand loaded
everything.
The most I, personally, have spent on computer gear was probably the $25
I gave for my microVAX-II back in 1999 or 2000. That was the same auction
where I bought a pallet of HP work stations for $25.
--Shaun, k0per