Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!amdahl!oliveb!amiga!jimm
From: jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: "handy scanners"
Message-ID: <3232@amiga.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jan 89 19:55:03 GMT
References: <10778@s.ms.uky.edu> <14375@oberon.USC.EDU>
Reply-To: jimm@cloyd.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Inc, Los Gatos CA
Lines: 39

In article <14375@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
)The "handy-scanners" need a board to work.  The board itself is pretty easy
)to do, and in IBM PCs uses either serial interrupts or DMA.  ALL the ones
)for the PCs are made by the same company in Taiwan, and then are OEMed to 
)various manufacturers [LOGITECH for example, see their ads in BYTE]. 
)The prices vary from $199 to $399. They capture about 4in by 11in at the
)smaller res.  They can work at 200, 300 and 400 dpi [more dpi -> less
)vertical distance].  Our company is "thinking" about producing one of these
)things for the Amiga, though we don't really know whether the market is
)large enough.

Hmm, I thought the most visible was produced by Mitsumi, of Japan.  There
was another Japanes manufacturer, I recall.  Anyway, I wrote software
for a PC and AppleII version of these boards a while ago.  If you want a contact
in Mitsumi's USA force, ask me.

My take on these things is that they have some nice specialized uses,
and should be lots cheaper than a page scanner to find a market.

Digitizing logos works nice, business cards work great (the Microfiche Filer
demo of business cards would pair up nicely), it does dollar bills.
And if you had the software to do OCR of magazine/newspaper columns, you'd
have something special, too.  You could digitize signatures for low cost, if
you had an application for that.

Without killer OCR, I'd have to wonder about how many people would have
a specialized application and buy one.

You should be able to hook one up through a parallel port, I figure.  They rip
in the neighborhood of 50KB/sec.

)-- Marco Papa 'Doc'

	jimm
-- 
Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing	   	"Like you said when we crawled down
{cbmvax,well,oliveb}!amiga!jimm          from the trees: We're in transition."
							- Gang of Four
Opinions are my own.  Comments are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.