Book scanner

[Giacomo Ferrari]

So I've got this cool old thermal transfer typewriter (Panasonic KW-W60TH) and managed to find a service manual for it on eBay. It's a thing of beauty - fold-out schematics, foil layouts, internal and external connector pinouts, detailed description of mechanical operation, etc. I'd like to get it preserved online and am willing to use my normal flatbed, but I'm wondering if anyone has one of those book scanners they wouldn't mind me using for a short time. Happy to drive somewhere. The manual itself is a center stapled booklet of 74 pages of standard letter size.

As an aside, I fell for one of those commercial PDF manual sellers and all I got back was a single diagram of (from memory) the head voltage adjustment. They never did give me a refund :/ I also have the external parallel port interface adapter for the typewriter and a full description of the protocol thanks to the manual I found, hope to have some fun with that someday. If you use thermal paper rolls you don't even need to use a cartridge, so no worries about ever running out!

Gia Ferrari

[Eli Goldberg]

You may get better offer, but — I do a bunch of digital preservation, and have the following high-volume scanners:

- ScanSnap SV600 (overhead book scanner)

- Scansnap ix1600 (ADF scanner)

The SV600 is easier, because it will not require disassembling the book, nor would it risk damage to any pages in an ADF feeder. If the pages do not lie flat, sometimes there can be a bit of distortion (but not too bad.)

The ix1600 will give the highest quality scans, with slight risk of damage to the original pages (unless one uses a carrier sheet for each page.)

If you're ever in Capitol Hill (above the light rail), we can grab a common room in my apartment building and scan your book. I prefer not to loan out equipment.

[Giacomo Ferrari]

(Mailing list to BCC)

Fantastic, common room sounds ideal (no way I'd want custody of nice equipment like that...!), as does the SV600! Perhaps the first weekend in November?

Thank you!

Gia Ferrari

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[Giacomo Ferrari]

Update to the group - the scan is done (Thanks so much, Eli, you saved me hours of time!) and available on my website and on archive.org. Full schematics, PCB foils, and electrical + mechanical theories of operation. It uses a Hitachi HD6303 (apparently the Psion 2 uses that, interesting).

Happy hacking,

Gia Ferrari (they/them)

On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 9:39 PM Eli Goldberg <e...@ugreenways.org> wrote:

[Shane Burnett]

I know I'm a few days late to this conversation, but I was in the Capitol Hill public library this weekend, where I noticed  this thing: 

https://tbsit360.com/products/scanning-solution/scanez/

It's a "ScanEZ" kiosk, with a book-edge scanner, a fax, a duplex scanner, etc. 

I think it's completely free. It includes OCR software, translation, image enhancement, etc. The book-edge scanner lets you hang the book over the edge of the scan bed for distortion-free book scanning (manually, one page at a time). It had an SD card slot and, I think, also the opportunity to email it to yourself.

Here's a map of Seattle Public Library branches that have the kiosk:

https://www.spl.org/using-the-library/reservations-and-requests/reserve-a-computer/computers-and-equipment/scanez-availability-map

Eli, it sounds like it could potentially be an additional tool in your arsenal, letting you scan book pages with no distortion or damage (though not as quick as either of your scanners, of course).

--Shane Burnett

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/seattle-retrocomp/CAHN8UQ7mhvLejCwA6%2BB6rAyWJHVQbLk-4xuKFg8%2BaZqSPrCU1g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Eli Goldberg]

I have to admit I tried it for some large-format color scanning of some early '80s LGBTQ music projects I was doing preservation work on a few months back (specifically, I needed to scan a few posters that were too large for my flatbed scanner). I was extremely disappointed in the image quality, and did not use the output. 

Not sure how it would perform on more black/white material, though?