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PDP-8/m Powered OCR Scanner

m_thompson

m_thompson

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Messages
1,998
Location
Rhode Island, USA
The RICM just did a road trip to Montreal to get an ECRM OCR Scanner that is powered by a PDP-8/m.
We got lots of documentation with the system, so there is some chance to get it running.
ECRM.jpg
 
Perhaps you can tell us a little more about exactly what it did? There only appears to be a papertape reader/punch (unless those 8" drives in the far upper right corner went with it.) Did it read handwriting or typewritten text? Were there distinct blocks on a form that had to be filled in? I'm just curious what OCR would have been like in 1975.

Thanks,
Lou
 
Those 8" drives in the ad are the ones I saw in the original photo in the upper left (not upper right as I had written earlier). From the ad, it appears that the machine can read specific typewritten fonts. I wonder if the output files from the scans can be read right into WPS?

Lou
 
We are just learning about the scanner. One article that I found said that they were often used by newspapers to read want-ad forms that were written by customers. The output was to paper tape or through a serial connection to a typesetter.

From reading the manuals it looks like an editor could mark up type written text, and the scanner would read the text, process the editors marked up changes, and output the edited text.

It came with a DSD-210 dual 8" floppy diskette system and OS/8, but we think that was added later.

It originally came with a Beehive serial console. It would be nice if we could find one so we don't need to fiddle with the serial terminal control codes.
 
3 Days of the Condor

http://www.starringthecomputer.com/appearance.html?f=12&c=16

Is that an ECRM OCR machine? 3 days takes place in a CIA station tasked with reading intercepted or other books and documents. Following the movie plot, and factoring the mission of the station, an OCR machine would be in order for their operation. The OCR machine of the time would have been a DEC PDP-8 driven ECRM.
 
I have pieces of this(ese) machines: two different document feeders, an empty expansion? cage and a backplane full of cards.
I had email conversations w/ somebody in the USA & Europe last year and got some schematics. I think there are books, but not hardware; I may have listings.

~30 years ago I got a bunch of DEC parts from dying weekly papers & printshops. I will reignite the cataloging mission. The mysteries remain with us...
 
I think that we have the schematics for all of the special ECRM boards in out scanner. I swapped some email with a collector in Switzerland who had some more ECRM schematics. Maybe we should make a list of all of the special ECRM boards that were made on the RICM WWW page and have a central repository of the schematics?
 
mustang said:
3 Days of the Condor

http://www.starringthecomputer.com/appearance.html?f=12&c=16

Is that an ECRM OCR machine? 3 days takes place in a CIA station tasked with reading intercepted or other books and documents. Following the movie plot, and factoring the mission of the station, an OCR machine would be in order for their operation. The OCR machine of the time would have been a DEC PDP-8 driven ECRM.
Click to expand...

The device to the right of the PDP-8/e is a DEC LP01 drum printer.
 
<quote>
I swapped some email with a collector in Switzerland who had some more ECRM schematics.
<endquote>
top view 1.jpgtop view 2 close.jpgECRM 12-slot + FP +xtndr.jpgM99 2 ECRM list.jpgECRM 2 DEC MU.jpg
Click to expand...

Joss Dreesen? He, another guy & I traded emails last year.

Yes on any sort of repository; to that end I have done some upgrades on my files. I have "rolled" [integrated] my list [in Module Utilization form] of ECRM boards that are on the 36-slot DEC backplane [w/ DEC M99 metal ID stamp] into a list of the schematics he sent over to us.

So, I have boards that he have schematics of and vicea versa. I'm interested in seeing how your list compares to mine.

In that list was an abbreviated Module Ut that seems to be how to put them together onto a standard Omnibus backplane.

As stated, I have the 36-slot DEC backplane labeled M99.

I also have two Document Feeders, one w/out laser and the other without the Servo stepper card. Both of the DF's have identical Superior stepper motors, lens [~3"], lasers, optical paths, similar roller gearing [toothed belts] but slightly different doc feed mechanisms.

One DF is missing the laser (did I remove & store it 3 decades back?), the other does not have the Stepper Drive board?. I remember seeing a spinning hex prism on one but have to verify such details.

Also, I have an empty 12-slot card cage; the backplane board is silkscreen'd ECRM. The backplane is offset the wrong way to not interfere w/ a Front Panel and is too narrow. In the pix is a FP that some gold scrapper dyked the edge fingers off. I may use the empty backplane for a test bed and splice a Douglas card onto the FP for extension.

There are some documents, I think. I do not recall anything on hardware, but I may have listings. That goes into another section of storage that needs to be cataloged.

I never got any cabinets or "skins". As indicated before, I dealt with other guys that were parting out weekly newspapers and printshops ~30 years ago. I have some Typeset8 stuff:
PA60/PA61/PR68/BRPE & some weird unidentified reader/punch stuff.

I will alert the other guy that interest is perking up, in case he doesn't follow this website. He had a number of cards, loose w/out the physical accoutrements; I don't recall if he had a backplane. His boards were a subset of my backplane grouping.

Sherman
 
booboo said:
I wonder if it's for reading test sheets or other similar items like the old Scantron type forms... as opposed to what we today consider OCR? Then again, magnetic character recognition goes back to 1959! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recognition
Click to expand...
ECRM OCR scanners would read IBM Selectric typewriter documents.
Using this scanner would require a newspaper to replace olf mechanical typewriters with more modern IBM Selectrics.
Common and possibly only font read would have been OCR A?
 
Lou - N2MIY said:
Perhaps you can tell us a little more about exactly what it did? There only appears to be a papertape reader/punch (unless those 8" drives in the far upper right corner went with it.) Did it read handwriting or typewritten text? Were there distinct blocks on a form that had to be filled in? I'm just curious what OCR would have been like in 1975.

Thanks,
Lou
Click to expand...
OCR A font produced on an IBM Selectric typewriter.
 
m_thompson said:
The one at the RICM was originally run by a PDP-8/I, but now has a PDP-8/M.
Click to expand...
PDP-8/M and PDP-8/F were OEM versions of the PDP-8/E. Virtually no difference except the capacity of the OMNIBUS backplane.
PDP-8/I was NOT an OMNIBUS machine. It was built with wire wrapped backplane.
 
My first PDP8/E came out of an ECRM scanner, and yes it was a /e, not a /m. Mine also came with a TU56H, placed externally.

I do have the driver software for the ECRM as a papertape should anyone need this.
 
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