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Microfilm Lasts Half a Millennium (theatlantic.com)
Millions of publications -- not to mention spy documents -- can be read on microfilm machines. But people still see these devices as outmoded and unappealing. From a report: I recently acquired a decommissioned microfilm reader. My university bought the reader for $16,000 in 1998, but its value has depreciated to $0 in their official bookkeeping records. Machines like it played a central role in both research and secret-agent tasks of the last century. But this one had become an embarrassment. The bureaucrats wouldn't let me store the reader in a laboratory that also houses a multimillion-dollar information-display system. They made me promise to "make sure no VIPs ever see it there." After lots of paperwork and negotiation, I finally had to transport the machine myself. Unlike a computer -- even an old one -- it was heavy and ungainly. It would not fit into a car, and it could not be carried by two people for more than a few feet. Even moving the thing was an embarrassment. No one wanted it, but no one wanted me to have it around either.
And yet the microfilm machine is still widely used. It has centuries of lasting power ahead of it, and new models are still being manufactured. It's a shame that no intrigue will greet their arrival, because these machines continue to prove essential for preserving and accessing archival materials. [...] Microfilm's decline intensified with the development of optical-character-recognition (OCR) technology. Initially used to search microfilm in the 1930s, Emanuel Goldberg designed a system that could read characters on film and translate them into telegraph code. Further reading: 'You Had to Be There': As Technologies Change Ever Faster, the Knowledge of Obsolete Things Becomes Ever Sweeter.
And yet the microfilm machine is still widely used. It has centuries of lasting power ahead of it, and new models are still being manufactured. It's a shame that no intrigue will greet their arrival, because these machines continue to prove essential for preserving and accessing archival materials. [...] Microfilm's decline intensified with the development of optical-character-recognition (OCR) technology. Initially used to search microfilm in the 1930s, Emanuel Goldberg designed a system that could read characters on film and translate them into telegraph code. Further reading: 'You Had to Be There': As Technologies Change Ever Faster, the Knowledge of Obsolete Things Becomes Ever Sweeter.
Around 1980 I got a job as a COM Camera Operator.
This was a job mounting tapes on cameras, loading the job and film canister, and pulling the tape and film canister. The tapes held the data transported from a data center. The camera displayed and 'shot' the data onto 105mm film that became the master to produce microfiche from.
We were a Service Bureau so we got tapes in from companies all over the region. Many companies had their permanent financial records shot to microfiche.
Some jobs came in daily, weekly, or quarterly. The film masters produced on silver halide film, were then duplicated on diazo film (ammonia process, the same chemical process as used for blueprints) to produce the 'use' copies of microfiche.
The 'dupers' were a lower tier in the labor at the COM shop.
Some of the cameras were proprietary, but the other group of cameras (called the Betas for some reason) incorporated a PDP-8 minicomputer as their controller. The data tapes were either 800, 1600, or the new high density 6250 bpi tapes.
Back in the late â90s I had to present to a group of academics at a univerisy conference. I was the only non-academic presenting, and at the time I worked as an IT consultant for a major software company that everyone likes to dislike. (Clue: starts with an O.) Wanting to ensure that my presentation was hassle free I asked for an overhead projector having previously printed out some transparencies at the office. All the other presenters were keen to show off their technical skills by presenting from their laptops using what was at the time relatively new technology: digital projectors. Back then they still required a certain degree of fiddling to get to work as this was still the era of Windows 95/98. And a lot of fiddling and delays ensued that afternoon. I didnâ(TM)t want any of that so opted for a good old fashioned overhead projector which worked flawlessly. Fast forward 20 years and it has become a much more reliable technology so wouldnâ(TM)t do the same today, but one shouldnâ(TM)t be ashamed of old-school technology if it gets the job done.
You can read microfilm using a cell phone with a microscope lens attachment. All you need is some rack mechanism to let you precisely scroll the film left/right, and move the camera up/down across the film. I'm not sure why this guy insisted on salvaging an outdated reader. Those were bulky in order to avoid the expense of a an electronic camera sensor (which could cost millions of dollars at the time) and built-in monitor. Neither of those are expensive anymore.