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Portable Scanner Solutions for Research?

Posted by Cliff on from the I-am-now-officially-a-Mac-head dept.

Fished asks: "Lately, I'm finding that I need to do a lot of research in Libraries -- remember those? I'm tired of feeding dimes to the copiers, and would like to buy some kind of portable scanner to go with my Powerbook. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find one that will work. Back in the eighties, this were as common as dirt: they were small, four inch wide scanners that you could run over the page. Also, while I've found three portable scanners for PC's (from Antec and Pentax) even if I could somehow get them to work with Mac OS X, they are sheet-fed, which is useless for scanning pages out of books. Does anyone still make the old-fashioned Hand Scanners, and do they make them for Macs?"

3 of 421 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Here's one gripe I have about slashdot. by DrLudicrous · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Speaking of gripes, why don't you check out my self-correction underneath. My gripe is people who don't take the time to read the whole thread, just up to the part that ticks them off or somehow irritates them.

    Yargh, talk about short notice- if you spent as much time reading as you did flapping your fingers on the keyboard, you might learn a thing or two.

  2. Re:Pen and paper, dumbass by Casca · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    That might work when you're writing a two page term paper in 7th grade, dumbass. I like to keep copies of some of the research material I use on a paper, it comes in handy when you want to go back and check something in your notes.

    Jesus you really are a twit realmolo.

    --
    Casca
  3. Whoa, talk about a coincidence by Edmund · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Interestingly, I just bought a Canon FB 630P scanner today for the exact same reason. It came with no cable (which I had) or AC adapter (el cheapo at Active Surplus) and the carraige mechanism was dislodged. The scanner itself and the AC adapter cost little more than US$10 (hey, I'm a starving student, dammit). If I didn't have a midterm tomorrow I'd be hacking it open right now to fix it. Damn. :)

    It's not the most elegant solution (I have to lug around my port replicator for the parallel port, PLUS the AC adapter), but you certainly can't beat the price.

    Anybody know much about the carraige mechanisms of these things? It looks like it uses a three-pulley system - a motor turns a worm gear, which turns another gear attached to a pulley. Two other pulleys are on either ends of this one to keep it "in line". It looks like I just have to hook the belt up correctly to make it all work.

    - Ed.