>not critical that it be pretty - just readable. I wouldn't be surprised
>if you could rig up something like this pretty easily yourself; pick up
>one of the fiche viewers that they can't give away at most university
>and government auctions, get a cheap flatbed scanner (even pretty good
>new ones can be had for under $100), take the mechanism out of the case,
>and bolt it to the front of the fiche viewer. You'd have to remove or
>disable the light source, since the bulb in the fiche viewer provides
>the illumination. I don't think you'd even have to mess with the focal
>length much; the fiche viewers normally do a rear-projection on frosted
>glass, and the scanner is set up to focus on a sheet of paper an inch or
>two away from the sensor, so with a spacer or two it should just work.
>That sounds like an interesting enough project that I might even build
>one if I had anything on fiche to scan. (I'm more interested in getting
Hmmm, I think I'll be keeping my eyes open for some stuff when I'm out
junking, this sounds a little bit interesting. If it wasn't for the
transparancy adapter on my current scanner, which I've got for antique 3-D
glass slides, I'd consider using that scanner, and replacing it with a
newer one. One advantage of building a setup like this, is you wouldn't
care about colour quality, just sharpness, and could buy the scanner
accordingly, probably saving a little (one can dream, right). I just might
know where I can get a semi-decent fiche reader for this. Hmmm.....
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh_at_holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
|
http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
Received on Sun Dec 06 1998 - 22:55:13 GMT