Just a story about giving old tech new life rather than throwing it out, for anyone who has a few minutes to kill...
I used to use an old MicroTek Scanmaker E3 flatbed SCSI scanner (from about 1997) on my Amiga 2000 with BetaScan. This is a large flatbed scanner which was sold as a decent quality scanner for the average user. I got a lot of use out of it on my Amiga.
When I finally had to switch to a PC after my A2000 failed in 2008 (I'll get it fixed one day) I thought it was the end for this scanner. I put it in mothballs along with an identical spare I had picked up cheaply as backup.
Many times I came close to throwing out (or donating to a Thrift store) these two old Microtek scanners. After all, they were just gathering dust and I felt guilty about contributing to house clutter. However, something always made me hold onto them for a little while longer.
For my new PC, I had bought an HP USB three-in-one printer/scanner/copier. The benefits seemed obvious: it was smaller, easier to connect, and supported by Windows as a plug-and-play device, etc. etc.
For a while I used that, and it was fine until recently when I had to do some work where image quality was a very important consideration. I do visual art and needed to scan some watercolour paintings in order to add text to them in a paint program.
I scanned them with the USB HP scanner, but was disappointed with the performance! Subtle colours (like the light blue sky) were reproduced inaccurately (or just as white) no matter what settings I used. There was fringing around high contrast colours (almost like a white outline of single pixels). Also, when you "upped" the resolution of the scan (i.e. from 300dpi to 1200dpi) the quality of the scan was not really any better - sure there were more pixels, but it was no better than if I had just interpolated the image (i.e. upped the resolution in software). Lastly, when you zoomed in on an image, you could notice there was a slight jitter visible at the edges of shapes.
All of this I assumed was due to the limitation of the HP scanner's "consumer level" optics (this was a scanner intended for general home use).
So, my most immediate option was to take the images to a professional printing office to have them scanned (inconvenient, slow and costly), or buy a more professional USB scanner (expensive).
I had one more option which was worth a try: I bought an old Adaptec PCI SCSI card for $15, hooked it up to my PC and got the old SCSI Microtek scanner running. Next, I did some test scans.
WOW! What a difference. The MicroTek E3 had much better colour accuracy. The images seemed very real, the textures of the paper/paint were picked up well. There was no fringing between high contrast areas (an older, different type of optics?).
The MicroTek also and had no problem scanning at high (modern) resolutions. When scanning at 1200dpi the high resolution scans (i.e. 1200 dpi) were actually visibly better quality scans when the image was zoomed in (rather than just appearing interpolated as on the modern HP scanner).
I'm guessing that in the 1990s, when scanners were still an expensive and relatively new novelty for home users, there wasn't as thin of a profit margin as today and the manufacturers could still afford to put higher quality components inside their "consumer" lines. Today's consumer level scanners and printers are all about selling cheaply and in volume.
The E3 is a bit of a beast (large size) but when image quality is paramount - I'll be using this throwback to the 1990s! In fact one advantage of its large size is that it has an 8.5. x 14" tray - hard to find on today's consumer-level scanners.
There are a couple of other great things about this clunkier, older technology:
- It's user servicable! The glass on the flatbed can be removed easily so that you can clean both sides
- The light is a standard mini-flourescent tube you can buy at ANY hardware store - and again, it's easy for the user to replace. I noticed that on the modern scanner light is provided by white LEDs, which may contribute to the reduced image quality.
An added bonus of installing the SCSI card to control the old scanner is that I can now connect real AMIGA SCSI drives to this Windows XP computer and exchange data. I can even use WinUAE to format and setup up drives for use in a real Amiga.
I'm super glad I held onto this old scanner. I had felt guilty about keeping around "old junk" but am now glad I didn't toss the E3. I will be using it for all my important archival and artwork scans where image quality is paramount. It's saved me from buying a modern "pro-level" USB scanner (which I don't think could perform any better) and kept some electronics out of the landfill.
It's funny how my computer desk is starting to look once again like it did when I had an A2000 sitting there. I've got the PC all set up with my Wacom Graphics tablet from my Amiga 2000 and now this Scanner from my Amiga 2000 days. It's running a very nicely tweaked WinUAE setup which I use a lot for productivity work: OS3.9, Lightwave, Alladin4d, Bars & Pipes, DPaint, ImageFX, etc. etc. It's a very pleasant Amiga setup, but with access to more RAM and CPU speed! Oh and I've also got a 1541 drive hooked up to the PC for transferring stuff to my VIC-20.
Don't worry about the real A2000. It will be working again and setup up somewhere (if get some room) in the house so the two computers can colaborate on projects.
So the lesson: sometimes making careful choices about what "old junk" to hold onto can pay off. That - and - newer isn't always better (or "they just don't build them like they used to"). Haha!
