Scanner on a cable, Chapter 63

The OCR System, that included a PDP-8 computer, was two inches longer than the elevator. We had to take the glass out of a fourth story window, and here is a photo of the system at the end of a cable, being lifted into the computer facility, high above Wilshire Blvd.

This scanner could NOT scan a picture, or a document, but could only read one special type font — called OCR-A — and convert it into the binary code recognized by the PDP-8. The data was then stored on a magnetic tape, and the tape was taken to another computer for processing. A large part of the machine contained the paper feeding mechanism, and the PDP-8 computer.

I forget the cost, but the purchase price must have been somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000.

See story at COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 63 (found in Memories of Early Computer Days).