Micro Fiche Library.

[Al Kossow]

If you look in the cctlk archives there was work done on this in the recent past

http://www.retrocmp.com/tools/pdp-11-diagnostic-database

seems to be a pointer to many sources


On 10/4/16 9:38 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:
> 
> 
> On 04/10/2016 17:16, Al Kossow wrote:
>>
>> On 10/4/16 8:02 AM, Shaun Halstead wrote:
>>
>>>> I'd like to work to-wards scanning all of the library into a system.
>>>> Anybody know anything about fiche scanners.
>>>
>>>    This is exactly what my company does (and my previous, now defunct,
>>> employer as well).  I have dedicated microfiche and microfilm scanners.
>>> The problem I ran into when trying to scan my DEC microfiche collection was
>>> that the fiche themselves were of very poor quality.  Badly scratched and
>>> scuffed, and poor quality duplicates.
>>>
>>>    Jim mentioned that dedicated microfilm scanners are expensive.  He's not
>>> kidding.  Used machines tend to start around $5k USD for a low end, heavily
>>> used scanner.  New machines are generally $30k at the lowest end.  Flatbed
>>> photographic film scanners are much cheaper, but also slower.  However,
>>> with some scripting and tools like the ImageMagick library, you can scan an
>>> entire fiche in one pass, then slice up the image into individual pages
>>> accordingly.
>>>
>> many people have jousted at this particular windmill
>> this is a huge time-consuming project
>>
>> I have literally thousands of sheets of DEC fiche from multiple sources
>>
>> scanning at that kind of volume doesn't scale. you have to clean an qc every sheet
>> even with a production scanner. It took me most of a day to do the little bit of xxdp
>> fiche a couple of weeks ago on a manual positioning Canon microfilm/microfiche scanner
>> at CHM
>>
>> I just bought another high-end scanner, which isn't running yet. It uses glass carriers
>> for each sheet and I have about 6 carriers.
>>
>> I was hoping it could handle IBM punched-card sized fiche, but I've not been able to
>> find a carrier that big. I have a rather large backlog of those as well.
>>
>>
>>
> Not a surprise.
> I have a box; fiche size front and about two feet deep marked xxdp.
> Perhaps we could avoid duplication of effort by knowing whats already been scanned.
> 
> The other issue is access to the scanned data.
> 
> I'm sure there are hardware hounds out there who could come up with cost effective  way to scan DEC 52x fiches.
> 
> Rod
> 
>