[Simh] best way to scan 172 column fanfold 80s printout?

[Alan Frisbie]

On 02/11/2018 09:45 AM, Timothe Litt wrote:

 > Scanning code is a bit different from scanning books.  Listings tend
 > to have headers, footers, (tractor feed holes), notations - in some
 > cases, assembly code or other columns - separate from the code.
 > Plus lines and/or colored bars.

Back in 1972, the place I worked at had a large Xerox copier with a
tractor feed for copying this sort of listing.   You dialed in the
page height, and it would copy your entire fanfold listing automatically.
The glass was curved, so the tractors could be adjusted to hold the
paper firm against the glass.

After all this time I doubt that any of these still exist, unfortunately.
Also, it only did copying, not scanning.

On a slightly related note:

Years ago, at a customer site, they had an Burroughs accounting machine
which loaded programs from paper tape.   The service company had a
diagnostic paper tape which I very much wanted a copy of, but they would
not let it out of their sight for me to take home and copy.   My solution
was to put it on the photocopier -- 16 inches at a time -- and image
it.   After marking the overlaps, I trained one of the clerks to read
the holes and write the octal value next to it, then type them all into
a file.   I then took the file home and punched a new tape.   Of course,
there were errors, but by laying the new tape over the images, they were
quickly found and corrected.   I repaid the service technician by making
him a few spare copies.

Alan Frisbie