sigh.. The rock has been lifted (again) DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work with all but the most expensive equipment. That's why it hasn't been done. Paul, sell it off however you see fit. I don't want any more of it, I have thousands of sheets already, and can't even get enough cycles to deal with the mountain of easy to scan paper filling my office, much less have time to set up the fiche scanner I bought two years ago.

On 2018-03-28 1:51 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: Topical issue. Dennis Tillman just posted this on TekScopes: https://groups.io/g/TekScopes/message/146035

This is a rather interesting question, it?s highly impractical, BUT, it might be a way for someone like me to get copies of single pages. A slightly more practical solution would be a DSLR setup with a bellows for Macro Photography. Realistically someone with a proper setup (which would mean creating a holder for the film), could probably photograph the sheets quite quickly. Zane

Mentioned it in an IRC channel. Friends started talking about it. The open source hughin software is what the people scanning microchip photos to reverse engineer them are using. Looks like it could handle that part. http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ Friend was saying new Sony mirrorless (Sony has been a huge player in digital mirrorless cameras recently) have 42MP sensors. His approach was image the whole thing at once but I'm not sure the resolution would be good enough. I was thinking more along the lines of something mirrorless and moving the film around capturing areas, pile the images in a dir for each fische, then stich and save. - Ethan -- : Ethan O'Toole

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: In other words, a homemade fiche scanner. If you start with a fiche viewer, then a lot of the mechanical parts, such as the fiche holder, are well under way. You need to modify the card movement mechanism to be able to automate it, but you could put that part off until you confirm that the optical portion is satisfactory. But, even when you put in the stepper motors to handle card motion for scanning, you still need to manually load each card into it, and THAT is one helluva lot of cards. Enough to even discourage Al! I s'pose there exists auto-feed fiche scanners, but prob'ly not cheap. You would need to replace much of the optics with a short focal length flat-field lens with a lot of extension. 25mm enlarger lenses, which are usually the cheapest flat-field lenses, are usually pretty available. Most are L39/M39/Leica screw mount (39mm diameter by 26tpi Whitworth. YES, Oscar Barnack really did go metric for diameter but not thread pitch!) which is REAL easy to find adapters to almost any interchangeable lens camera. Some enlarger lenses, however, are the Schneider mount which is 25mm x 0.5mm; those adapters used to be readily available, both for enlarger lenses and Compur 00 shutter. Now it takes a little more looking. Added extension shortens the distance from lens to subject. An added extension equivalent to the focal length of the lens will change the focus give you one-to-one. In other words, adding 2 inches of extension to a 50mm lens will bring the focus to 4 inches from the lens. You want a fair amount more than that. If you will be doing a wide mix of frame sizes, then a bellows would be the right way to go. Otherwise, extension tubes. Both are available very cheap on eBay from China for most cameras with interchangeable lenses. For a non-interchangeable lens camera (NOT RECOMMENDED!), you can add what uest to be called "Portra lens" that attaches like a filter, with added diopters. They are additive, and you will need more than one. They also further reduce the image quality. If you want help with the formulas for extension, just ask. My favorite source for that kind of information is a 1936 edition of "The Leica Manual" by Morgan & Lester. Most important formula is that distance from lens (focal node, not surface of front element) is equal to distance of lens from "film" multiplied by focal length divided by amount of extension. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Zane Healy wrote: Or gate of a filmstrip projector, movie projector (I used to deal with 16mm microfilm, as well as 35mm), or just sprocket spindle from camera, etc. BUT, are we talking about a single exposure for the whole card, and then isolating pages/frames later? That is certainly EASIER, but needs relatively hig resolution imaging device. OR, are we talking about a servo/stepper controlled device that maneuvers the card around, to shoot a separate exposure for each frame/page? Excellent resolution, but lots of mechanical work to make the positioner. I was suggesting getting the camera and optics working while manually positioning the fiche card. THEN deciding whether to put in steppers. Don't tell anybody :-), but if I were to do it, I'd probably use head positioner mechanisms from floppy drives. I disagree. Or maybe I don't quite qualify as "sane" :-) If this is a bespoke device sitting on a table, with a permanently mounted digital camera in it, then I would definitely go with extension tubes. Yes, you would need a way to handle fine focusing, but that could be a rack and pinion rail moving the camera. I do occasionally set the focus on the camera, particularly if it is "closest" focus, and then move camera in and out to find the focus. Extension tubes, once properly configured require no maintenance, re-adjustment, etc., and are available in even fairly thin forms. My first use of a lathe (half a century ago) was to shorten an extension tube 1.5mm Bellows go bad with age; the leather rots, pinholes develop, ... I need to do a thorough checkout before I use my view cameras or bellows. Or find some Ubik. OTOH, if this is not a dedicated device, and is going to be used for a lot of other stuff, then bellows has versatility. The minimum extension for a bellows is substantial, but well within range for THIS, so that isn't meant as an argument against for THIS. I have a FULL MOVEMENTS Kenlock/Hama bellows, similar to: http://forum.mflenses.com/spiratone-aka-hama-bellows-master-sst-with-bellow… that I am trying to setup to play with. I have a 47mm Super-Angulon that will cover 3.25x4.25 that will have PLENTY of image circle for exaggerated movements on a digital camera. But, I need to machine some thnner adapters. Yes, a "technical" view camera made with a Sony Nex is not "sane". It's not quite the information density of Knuth, but half a century ago, it handled all of my photographic reference needs other than film. 20? years ago, an early 1950s edition reinforced my suspicion that Vannevar Bush's claim for readable stopped motion of fast streaming microfilm was NOT feasible with the hardware that Bush "used" when he implied/claimed to have built his memex. Sure was handy that the library was stingy about updating their collection. Munchausen learned from him. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote: I like his enthusiasm and the fact that he actually got it together and DID it. Hmmm. If you gut the reader, and photograph the illuminated portion of the fiche, rather than project and photograph the screen, image quality will be a lot better. Ambient light will cease to be a significant issue. I don't think that ANY of them are color, so with bitonal, noise should not be that much of a problem, unless that is being compounded by the long exposure? Steadiness for a 3 second exposure seems like more of an issue. Although I generally agree with stopping down the lens, the midpoint of the aperture range is not necessarily the sharpest (often over-simplified to "2 steps down from wide open"), and the difference between f10 and f5.6 is not likely to be as significant as other issues. THAT would drop the exposure to less than a second. I don't know the sensitivity of the CCDs to long exposure, an exposure as long as 3 seconds gets into the "reciprocity failure" range. If it can be set up to let the PC monitor the image, rather than create a JPG and transfer that, then it should be possible to make some software on the PC to find the edges of the frames and move the positioner to center them. I'm not familiar with an "Isel" CNC positioner. We're not talking much mass to need something heavy enough that it disturbs everybody in the house, and requires a 5 second settle time. I'm thinking more in terms of floppy head positioners. BUT, he built one and made it work. I haven't done that.

On 2018-03-28 20:59, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote: The last sentence says it all: "And I'll think twice before I scan another batch of fiches!"

Initially I was going to suggest an Illumitran, but I don?t think it would work that well with trying to move the fiche around. You might have a point on the DEC fiche, though the bellows will allow you to maximize your page size. Of course that may not be the greatest idea, as the more you maximize the size, the more attention you?ll have to pay to positioning each frame. My Circa 1945 copy of the ?Ilford Manual of Photography? is another really useful book. I have a newer version of the ?Manual of Photography?, which superseded it, and I don?t find it as useful due to the quality of the troubleshooting photo?s. I?ve not run across the two sets you mention. Another favorite of mine is Fred Picker?s "Zone VI Workshop?, I?ve read it, cover to cover, a couple times. More and more, I view my Classic Computer collection as a hinderance to building a proper darkroom. Oddly enough, the main purpose of my PDP-11/44 these days is to hold a couple old enlargers that I don?t use. Zane

still have ? 5x7 ?durst ?amazing enlarger 8 feet ?tall ?with vacuum?register ? easel... ?before ?I ?owned it... it was ?used for ?making color separations? 500w ?agfa ? condenser color head... ?what a machine.... I ?kept it just ?cuz.... ?Ed# ?www.smecc.org ? ? In a message dated 3/29/2018 4:26:59 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? LOL! I wish I still had my De Vere 5x4 enlarger, but I've nowhere to put such a thing. Anyway, although I have access to some 5x4 Sinar equipment, the largest format I still have of my own is a couple of Mamiya 645s.

Yep. That is what I was thinking originally. I wasn't against the idea of projecting the slide to a surface then capturing that. There is a Canon 300 something or other Microfiche machine on eBay. They're like $200-300. It's a viewer that supports computer capture via what looks like SCSI and Twain driver. 5.5 seconds per grab: Oh look here is a DIY one that is good enough to center it on each page. Impressive. I think he is scanning DEC information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCRr9sbHBnM Here is the Canon 300II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro1pO5Zd9hI I'm not sure how person from unit #1 centers it, but unit #2 with a autoloader and steppers to do X/Y I think might provide sexy output. That is what I was thinking, but there might be cases where the slide sticks to the top of the glass holder. I think the holder is important for focus. -- : Ethan O'Toole

On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, geneb via cctalk wrote: Getting EVEN illumination throughout the frame will still be an issue. BIG issue for photographic images, but still a minor issue for bitonal text and schematics. Theoretical ideal is a point source with collimating "condenser" lenses (like the top half of an enlarger). BUT, for this, a diffuse light source or an added diffuser MIGHT be adequate. Particularly for bitonal, where half-tone density, or color balance, is not significant. For you, maybe. I'm a little overwhelmed contemplating that part of the project. Even the film holder is a little work. Which is why I was suggesting gutting a fiche reader for those mechanical parts, and then adding positioning mechanisms. <pedantic photo> That's the part thet I consider cheap and simple. Start out with a camera with interchangeable lenses. I'm partial to "Micro-Four-Thirds" and Sony Nex E-mount. There's enough different ones that you can start cheap, and upgrade later, if you need to, without starting over. Accesory items, such as extension tubes and lens mount adapters, are VERY available and cheap. Start with the lens that comes with it. You will need more extension for close focussing. Crappy, but usually USABLE, extension tubes are available on eBay "cheaper than postage". Bellows are not common for digital cameras, but used film camera bellows are readily available cheap, and adapters for mounting to the camera are cheap. If you're not sure what to get, simplest are "Pentax M42" (42mm x 1.0) or "Leica Screw Mount" (39mm x 26tpi). Exacta bellows are extremely cheap, but the adapter is a little harder to find. It costs a LOT extra to get extension tubes that will keep the auto-focus, so don't plan on that. Some cameras hava a semi-auto "focus assist", that will simply have the camera TELL you when it thinks that the image is in focus. Calculate the extension distance lens to subject = (extension+focallength)*focallength/extension or make a guess and then move back and forth until you find how close your guess was. Remember that an extension equal to the focal length will give you 1:1, with the back of the camera about 4 times the focal length from the subject. Once you've tried that out with the lens that came with, . . . Do a few frames manually to see how the quality is. I want "FLAT-FIELD" lenses for this kind of stuff. The cheapest are enlarger lenses. Those are usually L39/M39/Leica screw mount (39mm x 26tpi). SOME are Schneider (25mm x 0.5mm), in which case you need to find the adapter between that and L39. You want a relatively SHORT lens! The 100mm used in the recently discussed DIY scanner will require 4 inches of additional extension to get 1:1, so you are looking at a LONG bellows combination. 35mm or 25mm would be easier, although better lenses are available in 50mm. If you use a lens that was not for that kind of camera, you may need to experiment. Leica camera lenses were intended for 28.8mm lens mount to film. Enlarger lenses, inspite of same mount are not, and you will need to play with it to get a starting point for extension/focus. Find a bright outdoor scene, which we will call "infinity". Holding a sheet of paper, move it around to find the focus. (NOT sun, or the paper may ignite). THAT is your mount to image infinity distance, and will help you calculate how much you need to add on to the calculated extension. If you really need to "cheap-out", and not go with even an interchangeable lens camera, . . . There are cheap used attachments for slide duplication that fit on the front of a lens for 1:1. If you zoom the lens in further, you may get enough to work. Or at least let you capture 24x36mm in each exposure. If you really want to undertand this stuff, find an OLD edition of The Leica Manual by Morgan & Lester. </pedantic photo> I would, of course, play with doing a few frames manually. At least to get any idea of what SIZE the whole thing will need to be. But, once that's working acceptably, a good mechanical system is essential. There are SO many cards to scan that an auto-loader becomes worthwhile. Otherwise, you are looking at MONTHS to scan a few hundred cards. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On 2018-03-30 9:21 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: It should be possible to clean in the same way that oil-mounted film is cleaned after scanning - often IPA (with minimal water content, say 99%!) There are also some specialised products I found in a quick google: * Kami http://www.aztek.net/kami-rc2001-film-cleaner-1-liter/ * Varn https://www.baypressservices.com/acatalog/Film-Cleaner-Varn.html * Anchor https://www.fujifilmdirect.com/index.php/offset-printing/prepress-1/film-ch… * https://www.rbpchemical.com/product/special-film-cleaner/ etc --Toby

On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: The unit I saw last week was very even. The person that owned it uses it for studio lighting for video production. The X/Y table is probably the simplest part of the build - every part of it is a solved problem, from the motion gantry to the controller. It could be driven by an Arduino Uno and a pair of Pololu Stepper Drivers connected to a pair of 1.8 degree NEMA17 steppers. The gantry could be made from 3D printed carriages equipped with 608 skate bearings riding atop rails made from 1/2" EMT conduit. The camera system is WAY outside my wheelhouse, but I'd be happy to work with someone to get an X/Y gantry built. I've got plenty of idle 3D printers and tons of unused skate bearings. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

On Sat, 31 Mar 2018, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: Works for me. :) FYI, a $40 3D printer controller would provide all the brains needed. They can grok standard M and G codes and easily support four axes of motion. The firmware and hardware design is open source too. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

On 29/03/2018 05:26, Shaun Halstead via cctalk wrote: Yet there are plenty of LED light sources used in photomicroscopy so I don't believe it's that hard to do,which is why I suggested it. I've seen it done with a high-brightness 5mm LED, but if a bit more "oomph" or a larger emitting area is required, there are inexpensive 1W and 3W LEDs that look like they'd work. I'm no expert, but the biggest problem in photomicroscopy seems to be the spectrum, which isn't really an issue for monochrome microfiche. -- Pete Pete Turnbull

On 2018-03-28 22:26, Shaun Halstead via cctalk wrote: That's why we should do it now, not later ;-)

On 03/29/2018 09:54 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: Huh? DEC service and software listings on Diazo? Hmmm, you are right! I always thought these were silver film, but just took a look and they are very dark blue Diazo. On the other hand, these are VMS 4.2 fiche, so QUITE old, and look totally brand-new. So, we have a few years yet to find a way to read them. I am familiar with that frosty Diazo fiche that are very pale blue color, wouldn't be surprised if those faded. They were never intended for archival storage. Jon

On 2018-03-28 3:37 PM, ethan at 757.org wrote: The problem with engineers is they sometimes reach to build something really?) when off the shelf equipment can do this, and better. Communalise that equipment. (See also: Book scanning.) --T

Stupid question on the side, as I know/have DEC fiche only. Are there any fiche out there, which are bigger than 8x6 inches?

also aperture cards, which are punched cards with a single 35mm image on them On 3/29/18 8:49 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: A lot, but almost certainly not all. For microfiche, 1200dpi is NOT high resolution. If we assume that each frame represents an 8.5x11 page, . . . if the frame were an inch wide, that would be 1200 pixels for the width of the page, or the eguivalent of about 150dpi Half inch frames would be the equivalent of 75dpi. Better than nothing, but far from ideal. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan Dicks wrote: Ah, but we now have TWO Ethans on this list. THOSE questions were from "Ethan via cctalk" <ethan at 757.org> aka: : Ethan O'Toole ethan at 757.org -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: They vary. I have one that fits in a pocket! Usually, they are a tabletop box a few feet square. Some used to have a printer in them. Most tend not to be very extremely heavy, since a lot of that size is empty space between a projection lens and a screen. BUT, there are some monstrous ones! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On 28/03/18 22:02, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: Mine's in the garage and it's raining otherwise I'd go and measure it, but that's exactly what mine is. A small case that opens up to reveal a fiche reader. There's enough room for a box or two of fiche too. Antonio -- Antonio Carlini arcarlini at iee.org

On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Kevin Parker via cctech wrote: If only that were 16mm or 35mm continuous rolls, instead of microfiche! In 1931, Emanuel Goldberg, then a chief engineer at Zeiss built the "Statistical Machine". By recording bits optically in the margins of microfilm, and reading them with photocells, it could find appropriate frames! For use in soundtrack for films, Mauer puts up to 8 parallel variable area optical tracks in the margin! 8 bit parallel! Goldberg was also apparently responsible for the Contax camera. BUT, in the days leading up to World War Two, he fled Dresden and Zeiss could not afford to have mention of a Jew in a high profile position, and by the time the war ended, they had systematically erased most clues that he had existed! http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldberg.html A decade later, Vannevar Bush stole the idea, and without credit, claimed it as his own, as the foundation for his Memex device. Bush did not successfully build his machine. Bush's Atlantic Monthly article, "As We May Think" is sometimes considered the foundation of modern information science. Bush did not understand nor accept the concepts of index nor hierarchical organization, so he pushed for linkage to go from one topic into another. Ted Nelson credits it as the inspiration for Hypertext, and Cern credits Ted nelson. Alas, the volume of data involved precludes reels of microfilm, and the only hope for access is manually cataloging titles of the cards, followed eventually by linking to images on the web, and eventual OCR of the text portions. How many page images will fit on a 3TB drive? How many can we store and retrieve in the MTBF? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On 2018-Mar-28, at 6:52 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: [...] An article ( http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldbush.html ) on your referenced site assesses the state of the art in between Goldberg and Bush (1931-1938). Near the end the writer states: " Three considerations suggest that he [Bush] was unaware of the detail of Goldberg's work when he [Bush] built his prototype in 1938-40: [. . .] " and makes no conclusion of conscious influence (on Bush by Goldberg). So when you say Bush "stole", and "claimed it as his own", etc., do you have some other reference or is this merely your pejorative accusation and hyperbole? (Not the Memex you mention, but, as discussed in the article, he did build the predecessor 'microfilm rapid selector'.)

Maybe relevant here, maybe not, but it's worth keeping in mind that history is full of things that were "discovered" several times. The name that is remembered tends to be the name associated with the instance that took hold, not necessarily the first one. Examples include America, frequency modulation, telegraphy, and many others. paul