RE: Scanning question
> Have a look at > https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aura-speeds-simplifies-all-your- > scanning-needs#/ > > Carl Claunch pointed me at this, he has one and I am sure he can > comment > further. I have ordered one. You can actually get them off of Amazon and they run specials on them quite often. However, I have spoken to a few guys who own one and they are less than impressed -Ali
Re: Scanning question
On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 01:01 Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: > > I have a lot more to say about the wisdom of destroying original > publications > to scan them, especially when you are not already an expert at scanning and > the many tradeoffs. > But have to go afk just now. > There are literally dozens of classic computers that I've been able to fix or make useful thanks to scanned manuals from Al Kossow or others, where the docs are too rare for me to have found an original of. Without the scanned copies, the machines probably would have ended up scrapped. It's better to have more people making more information accessible than just hoarding documentation (and then they probably just eventually get thrown out) and not scanning them because of some curmudgeon saying they don't know the best way to do it. Pat > >
Re: Scanning question
On 19/07/2019 06:01, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: I have a lot more to say about the wisdom of destroying original publications to scan them, especially when you are not already an expert at scanning and the many tradeoffs. But have to go afk just now. I scanned a decent amount, several hundred items, when I had access to reasonable scanners. I've "destroyed" precisely one item and that actually still exists (I cut the spine off but I still have all the pages). A few other docs had already fallen apart (the glue in the binding had failed over the years) so I may have separated out the last few remaining pages. Everything else was either in a ring binder or stapled together (in which case I've reassembled the document afterwards). So scanning doesn't necessarily lead to a reduction in available hardcopy. I suspect that much more is lost either due to "I need the space, this has to go" or time (water damage, pages sticking together, mice/worms, whatever). Which reminds me, I need to find online copies of Personal Computer World so I can sell off a few boxes worth :-) Antonio -- Antonio Carlini anto...@acarlini.com
Re: Scanning question
On 2019-07-19 6:36 a.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 7/18/19 10:01 PM, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: > >> I have a lot more to say about the wisdom of destroying original publications >> to scan them, especially when you are not already an expert at scanning and >> the many tradeoffs. >> But have to go afk just now. > > It would seem to be possible today. Perhaps with a laser scanner that > also determines the focal plane of the area of the text it's trying to scan? > There are both software (e.g. some of Matt Zucker's code) and hardware (e.g. what google does) solutions for this, and published research on related matters. --Toby > I'm sure there must be something like this. > > --Chuck > >
Re: Scanning question
Carl Claunch pointed me at this, he has one and I am sure he can comment further. I have ordered one. What about the setups where it's a cube with with digital cameras mounted facing opposite plexiglass panels? You sit it down in the book and the cameras shoot both pages at once. - Ethan
Re: dBase IV for VAX/VMS (was WordPerfect 5.1+ for VMS)
> On Jul 18, 2019, at 8:58 PM, Eric Dittman via cctalk > wrote: > > On 7/18/2019 12:26 AM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> On a related note, was there ever a copy of dBase III or dBase IV for >> VAX/VMS? I know there was a version of Lotus 1-2-3. > > I don't know about the earlier versions but I have a copy of dBase IV > for VAX/VMS that's still in the shrink-wrap. > -- > Eric Dittman Interesting, so my vague memory was correct. That means they had WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase IV available. Was there All-IN-1 integration? I think both WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 offered that. There seems to be almost no info online on it. Zane
Re: Scanning question
On Jul 18, 2019, at 14:50, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > So, I have a bunch of old DEC Rainbow docs that aren't online. I also have > a snapscan scanner that I use for bills and such. I do this kind of thing, with a ScanSnap S1500M (M means Mac), but mostly don't mind that the process is destructive to the books. Really, the only things that survive this process are the things that start out looseleaf, and as I’m trying to get some silverfish food out of my life, most of them get recycled too. Really there is a ScanSnap for the text block and a flatbed for the covers. I scan covers and/or dust jackets first, on the flatbed, usually 300dpi color. Sometimes front cover with spine if I think the design is interesting. Books come apart. Yes, glue bound books get crumbly bindings after 30 years or so and come apart easily. Newer glue bound books come apart less easily because the binding is still gummy and gooey. You will still want a paper cutter or shear to clean up the gutter by about 1/8 inch (would perhaps use 4mm if my paper cutter had a metric scale) and make its edge less ragged and less gooey. The ScanSnap wants to scan a bunch of sheets/pages and make a PDF for you. It can do an automatic post-scan OCR if you let it, and that works well for account statements and other short documents. Its OCR (which I think is a version of AABBY that Fujitsu/PFUCA licensed for use with the ScanSnap software) is not real good at recognizing multiple columns or tables, it gets the characters but not the layout. The ScanSnap can also try to figure out whether a page image should be scanned as black-and-white, as grayscale, or as color. There are ways to control this if you’re not happy with its choices through defining scanning profiles that influence and limit its choices. So I scan black-and-white text as 400dpi or 600dpi (judgment call). You may find you want to scan one book piecewise so you can use black-and-white for the text-only parts and grayscale or color for the photo plates. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/portablePlus/45559-90001_Portable_PLUS_Technical_Reference_Manual_Aug1985.pdf is an example of one (a looseleaf manual) that I did with a ScanSnap, and I think I did it all in black-and-white at 400dpi. You can see the holes punched for the three-ring binder. Al would put white over them to hide them, but that's because his scanner yields per-page TIFFs where he can get at that. I have got some shell/Perl/netpbm code that does things like that with his sort of scanner filepiles like that, but haven’t got round to something to turn a ScanSnap-produced PDF into a bunch of per-page TIFFs. You can use Adobe Acrobat Pro to gather a bunch of PDFs (and PNGs and TIFFs) into a single PDF, put down page numbers, put down bookmarks that mirror the table of contents. Eric Smith's tumble can do some of these things but I also use Acrobat Pro 8 (which was bundled with the S1500M) for OCR. Its OCR is based on something other than AABBY (I.R.I.S. I think) and does better at multiple columns of text. I do not expect OCR to be perfect, ever. I hope it will be good enough for me to find things I remember reading, and thus far it has worked reasonably well at that. (This via macOS Spotlight.) What is presented for view in Preview is the page image as scanned and there is the possibility to re-OCR the PDF with newer software. ScanSnap software looked much the same on Windows and macOS, and may yet; haven’t seen recent versions of the Windows software. There are differences in how they encode page images in PDFs, e.g. on macOS the software will encode a black-and-white scanned page image using a compression that is lossless but doesn't actually compress very well, and I think this is because macOS code is used to construct the PDF. I use an Acrobat Pro “preflight” configuration to convert these to what is basically TIFF G4 encoding with run-length lossless compression that is better at reducing PDF file size. On Windows, the generated PDF also uses the run-length compression. -Frank McConnell
Re: dBase IV for VAX/VMS (was WordPerfect 5.1+ for VMS)
On 7/19/19 4:04 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > >> On Jul 18, 2019, at 8:58 PM, Eric Dittman via cctalk >> wrote: >> >> On 7/18/2019 12:26 AM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >>> On a related note, was there ever a copy of dBase III or dBase IV for >>> VAX/VMS? I know there was a version of Lotus 1-2-3. >> >> I don't know about the earlier versions but I have a copy of dBase IV >> for VAX/VMS that's still in the shrink-wrap. >> -- >> Eric Dittman > > Interesting, so my vague memory was correct. That means they had > WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase IV available. Was there All-IN-1 > integration? I think both WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 offered that. > > There seems to be almost no info online on it. > I just looked and none of the three were included in the VAX Software Source Book. bill
DEC Pro380 problems
I pulled my Pro380 out of storage after getting a replacement VR201 monitor. I connected it all together and on powerup I get the following display: http://www.dittman.net/pro380/screen.jpg The tech manual says this is an error from slot 1 (the hard drive controller) and the error is "Non-existent memory trap occurred for longer than 20 seconds". I reseated all the cards. I noticed three ICs are missing on the hard drive controller but I don't know if they are empty or someone removed the ICs (I can't remember where I got this system). I can't find a picture of the controller to compare. The missing ICs can be seen here: http://www.dittman.net/pro380/missingics.jpg These are the installed option cards: http://www.dittman.net/pro380/cards.jpg Any ideas? -- Eric Dittman
Scotch 777 "blue label" tape blues confirmed
This is in reference to my earlier post about Scotch 777 half-inch open-reel tapes. I'd reported that I encountered a tape that displayed binder bleed, such that the tape would stick to the heads and guides. This was a tape that had been both baked and cleaned. Coating the tape with a film of cyclomethicone allowed it to be successfully read. In the latest batch of tapes, I found another one--it behaves identically. These appear to be only the blue foil-labeled 777s; the yellow paper labeled ones are fine. I estimate the manufacture date to be about 1969-70. FWIW, Chuck
Re: Scotch 777 "blue label" tape blues confirmed
same as sticky shed syndrome? On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 10:22 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > This is in reference to my earlier post about Scotch 777 half-inch > open-reel tapes. I'd reported that I encountered a tape that displayed > binder bleed, such that the tape would stick to the heads and guides. > > This was a tape that had been both baked and cleaned. > > Coating the tape with a film of cyclomethicone allowed it to be > successfully read. > > In the latest batch of tapes, I found another one--it behaves identically. > > These appear to be only the blue foil-labeled 777s; the yellow paper > labeled ones are fine. > > I estimate the manufacture date to be about 1969-70. > > FWIW, > Chuck >
Scanning Results
OK. I've done the first of the manuals I have. Thanks for all the helpful hints. I took apart the Rainbow User's Manual's metal spiral spine. I scanned it with scansnap and ran it through the indexing function. I think I tweaked the settings in a reasonable way. The results look good to my eye, but I'm not 100% sure, so I thought I'd post it here for feedback: https://people.freebsd.org/~imp/EK-P100E-OM-001_Rainbow_100_Owner's_Manual-Nov-1982.pdf I have the manual still apart and can do additional scanning runs easily enough. The paper is in great shape. Second, how do I submit this to bitkeepers? I've looked around and don't see how. maybe I'm just being blind... Warner
Re: Scotch 777 "blue label" tape blues confirmed
On 7/19/19 8:59 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > same as sticky shed syndrome? No, not exactly--it's more like binder bleed-through. The oxide remains firmly attached to the base, but there is a film of either gummified lubricant or binder that fouls up things. Normally, if it's sticky-shed, the tape sticks to itself, but that isn't the case--the tape despools and spools quite easily on its own, but leaves deposits on any stationary surfaces that it glides over--and adheres to those. Isopropanol seems to clean deposits from heads and guides; no oxide is left behind. So a coating of cyclomethicone renders the tape non-sticky for a time. It's bizarre and seems to be related to this particular type of tape. --Chuck
