00lhramer@bsu-ucs.uucp (Only to fly where angels dare - and the nights she whispers - Ride the wind never coming back again...) (11/28/90)
I am interested in these OCR's and any sort of scanner device that
translates what it reads into ASCII codes. I have many questions
that I don't know where else to ask.
1. What does OCR stand for? (Optical something or other?)
2. What sizes do such scanners and other machines like this
come in?
In particular, is there such a thing as a hand held OCR,
or similar device, in the shape or size of a pen?
3. What software exists that accomplishes the task (printed
material to ASCII)?
How expensive is the software?
Does this software involve a lot of Artificial Intelligence?
4. How fast are these machines? (I assume very fast. Our
library has one that reads text to the blind at speeds up
to 425 words per minute.)
5. How expensive are the cheaper OCR's? (How astronomical do
the prices go?)
Does it seem that the prices are going to rise or fall soon?
(I assume that this is relatively new technology, and it seems
that we usually pay through the nose for new technology.)
6. Judging from the questions posed in this newsgroup, I assume
that these machines are somewhat inflexible as the font styles
that they can read. What kinds of more flexible machines exist?
(What I mean, are there programmable OCR's which, let's say that
you have it scan the FONT for each character and the user then
labels the letter as he/she reads it?)
7. What technological advances are we looking forward to in the near
future in the field of OCR's?
Do the current OCR machines require another (HIGH SPEED) CPU to
do the work of "reading" the text?
If so, there must be software that the main CPU could "READ" some
sort of bitmap code generated by a fairly inexpensive scanner.
How quick is this kind of software?
I didn't intend to ask so many questions, but I was on a roll...
(If possible e-mail your responses. I don't get a chance to read the news
often. I also often forget what and where I posted. :-)
Thanks in advance for any and all help,
Leslie Ramer
Secretary, Student Chapter, ACM
Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.
00LHRAMER@BSUVAX1.BITNET