scanning microfiche - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

5 Feb 2003

Brian Knittel and I have a few hundred fiche of IBM documentation and code 
relating to the 1130 (http://ibm1130.org).  This is tens of thousands of 
pages that we'd love to get into a digital form -- in particular we want 
to get a few fiche done FAST because Brian borrowed them from someone else 
who won an interesting set at auction recently.  My attempts to scan them 
with an Epson 2450 Photo have been unsatisfactory, apparently mostly 
because of slight focus issues that only become apparent at the highest 
resolutions, and I've started to believe that we need to use a real 
microfiche scanner to do the job.  Unfortunately they're way expensive, 
and I can't think of buying one ... and service bureaus charge by the 
page, about $.10 per page to be exact.  We need a cheaper option.

So ... does anyone know of a fiche scanner that occasionally sits unused,
that we could use?  Or, does anyone have any better ideas?

Thanks,

Norm Aleks