4 ms·

Old scanners were SCSI, which made me wonder if you could use them as boot devices, if you could stuff the scanner driver and OCR software into the BIOS. Might

Old scanners were SCSI, which made me wonder if you could use them as boot devices, if you could stuff the scanner driver and OCR software into the BIOS. Might be easier now that we have uEFI.

hackomorespacko 9mo ago
[dead]
- dang 9mo ago
  Thanks, I've taken the liberty of fixing the typo. (GP used to say "old scanners where SCSI")
estimator7292 9mo ago
Even older scanners were raw ISA piped over a centronix cable
bobmcnamara 9mo ago
Forth it up on a middle aged PowerPC Mac!
yesturi 9mo ago
That is ridiculously fantastic idea! Shame I used to have an SCSI scanner but I already disassembled it for parts. One can write a simple bootloader, which reads bytes printed on a paper sheet to memory then boots it. Something like: black (0), white (1) or long rectangle (1), short rectangle (0). Wonder about the storage capacity of the A4 paper.
- ddingus 9mo ago
  Use some finer pitch graph paper and people could author "boot sector code" by literally coloring in the little squares with the necessary bits! Would be sort of like paper tape.
  - nxobject 9mo ago
    Pepperidge Farm remembers when high-school computing classes used Scantron-style optical mark cards... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HP_Educational_Basic_optical_mark-reader_card._Godfrey_Manning..jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HP_Educational_Basic...
    - ddingus 9mo ago
      Cool! My school used a variation of these for a while. scantron... a name rising from the mists of time, lol
ddingus 9mo ago
Someone needs to give this a go! Fantastic IDEA seconded!
sandworm101 9mo ago
OCR? Just have it read out binary. Then it can boot by looking at a punchcard.... or a lot of them.
romforth 9mo ago
This one boots from the parallel port: https://github.com/climatex/BootLPT https://github.com/climatex/BootLPT (more details here https://boginjr.com/it/sw/dev/bootlpt-86/ https://boginjr.com/it/sw/dev/bootlpt-86/)
burnt-resistor 9mo ago
Not all old scanners were just SCSI; there parallel port and proprietary adapter card scanners too. Some cameras and printers also had SCSI interfaces: Opex MPS-40 mail sorting camera and NeXT Color Ink Jet SCSI. And don't forget SCSI network adapters (NICs). I'm wondering if there were a SCSI mouse and/or a SCSI to RS-232 adapter.

Old scanners were SCSI, which made me wonder if you could use them as boot devices, if you could stuff the scanner driver and OCR software into the BIOS. Might be easier now that we have uEFI.

hackomorespacko 9mo ago

[dead]

dang 9mo ago
Thanks, I've taken the liberty of fixing the typo. (GP used to say "old scanners where SCSI")

estimator7292 9mo ago

Even older scanners were raw ISA piped over a centronix cable

bobmcnamara 9mo ago

Forth it up on a middle aged PowerPC Mac!

yesturi 9mo ago

That is ridiculously fantastic idea! Shame I used to have an SCSI scanner but I already disassembled it for parts. One can write a simple bootloader, which reads bytes printed on a paper sheet to memory then boots it. Something like: black (0), white (1) or long rectangle (1), short rectangle (0). Wonder about the storage capacity of the A4 paper.

ddingus 9mo ago
Use some finer pitch graph paper and people could author "boot sector code" by literally coloring in the little squares with the necessary bits! Would be sort of like paper tape.
- nxobject 9mo ago
  Pepperidge Farm remembers when high-school computing classes used Scantron-style optical mark cards... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HP_Educational_Basic_optical_mark-reader_card._Godfrey_Manning..jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HP_Educational_Basic...
  - ddingus 9mo ago
    Cool! My school used a variation of these for a while. scantron... a name rising from the mists of time, lol

ddingus 9mo ago

Someone needs to give this a go! Fantastic IDEA seconded!

sandworm101 9mo ago

OCR? Just have it read out binary. Then it can boot by looking at a punchcard.... or a lot of them.

romforth 9mo ago

This one boots from the parallel port: https://github.com/climatex/BootLPT https://github.com/climatex/BootLPT (more details here https://boginjr.com/it/sw/dev/bootlpt-86/ https://boginjr.com/it/sw/dev/bootlpt-86/)

burnt-resistor 9mo ago

Not all old scanners were just SCSI; there parallel port and proprietary adapter card scanners too. Some cameras and printers also had SCSI interfaces: Opex MPS-40 mail sorting camera and NeXT Color Ink Jet SCSI. And don't forget SCSI network adapters (NICs). I'm wondering if there were a SCSI mouse and/or a SCSI to RS-232 adapter.