🚀 go-pugleaf

This may be a frequently-asked-question. :-)

Does your company/department use a desk top scanner
to capture text and graphics for use on a UNIX system?
If so, how is the system arranged? What text-recognition
software did you use? (Ideally, I'd like public-domain
C source.)

I've found several bits of hardware (SCSI-interface preferred),
so that isn't my problem. What I need to know is how best to make it
available to the naivest of users. Of course, my budget isn't
too large. :-)

I can connect the scanner to a PC running one of the MS-DOS
text-recognition packages, and that to our TCP/IP LAN with
something like PC TCP. More straightforwardly, I can plug it
into the back of a Sun 3/50 and read/write the /dev/s[dt]0
SCSI device. This last mode, however, probably means dedicating
the Sun to this use - which seems wasteful. Also, there is then
probably the need to buy expensive, quirky, binary-only software.

My ideal would be a scanner with a dedicated ethernet interface and
TCP/IP, a one-line 80 column LCD display and a plug for a
cheap keyboard. It would prompt `login:', then `password:' and
finally `pathname (control-D to logout):'. You'd place your document
on the glass, type the file's pathname and press return. It would
prompt for another file.

Whether I'd want this program also to do my image-to-text conversion
I don't know. Perhaps this would be best done with a filter once the
person was back sitting at their own workstation. The systems
administrator here recommends omitting the password prompt and avoiding
the need for the box to do authentication - the scanned images would
end up owned by `user' in /usr/spool/scan/`user'/`name', where `user'
is the login name, and `name' is the simple file name given.

Yes, I have chased up leads from Sun's third-party hardware/software
catalogue "Catalyst". :-) It's recommendations I'm after.

John A. Murdie