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From: seah@ee.rochester.edu (David Seah)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Apple Scanners
Message-ID: <1990Jul13.211816.1684@ee.rochester.edu>
Date: 13 Jul 90 21:18:16 GMT
References: <2837@orbit.cts.com> <1990Jul11.195612.25552@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu>
Reply-To: seah@ee.rochester.edu (David Seah)
Organization: University of Rochester Department of Electrical Engineering
Lines: 41

In article <1990Jul11.195612.25552@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu> toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
>hackman@pnet51.orb.mn.org (-: Otto "Hack-Man" Heuer :-) writes:
>
>>Does anyone have any recommendations for scanners for the Apple IIgs?
>
>Quickie by Vitesse (ads in A+/Incider and probably Nibble) is a hand scanner
>that is marketed specifically for the GS.

Quickie just released new software (Quickie 2.0) that is a enormous
improvement over the old version.  It can scan in 16 level grayscale
and edit huge picture files.  It can save in a variety of paint formats,
including DHR and HGR pictures.  I bought one, and I'd have to say it's
the best thing I purchased for my GS in a long time.  It's up there with
my InnerDrive40 :)  You can get the Quickie mail order for about $200.
Vitesse appears to be really dedicated to the Apple II market...they
are the same company that publishes Salvation (the spiffy hard disk
backup program).

Thunderware demoed the LightningScan hand scanner, which is based on the
same hardware that the Quickie uses.  As far as I know, it's not yet
available.  There have been some sample scans uploaded to America Online
by beta testers, and they look quite nice in 16 levels of gray.

>>Also, is there any software commercially available to parse the scanned
>>bitmaps and is able to convert the pixels into ascii characters (with not
>>*too* many errors)?
>
>There is supposed to be a conference on America Online (aka AppleLink Personal
>Edition) soon about a OCR package for the GS.

The conference will be in the Apple II Productivity Forum on Thursday,
July 26.  I forgot the company's name, but Alan Bird (ala Beagle) had
something to do with its development.  It works with the Quickie hand
scanner, I'm told, and allegedly goes up to 50wpm recognition rate.
Vitesse sent the developers a Quickie so they could develop this software,
according to JohnP (Vitesse rep) on AO.  The software itself is not
available to my knowledge.
-- 
Dave Seah |       Omnidyne Systems-M         | INET: seah@ee.rochester.edu
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