The Migraph Hand Scanner by Eric Kaljumagi At the recent Sacramento Atari Expo, I purchased an item I had always wanted -a scanner. I had dreams of using optical character recognition to avoid retyping all the reprinted articles that appear in Yackity-YAC. I had dreams of scanning in my own documents to use with STraightFax! (reviewed in the June 1996 issue of Yackity-YAC). I had dreams of scanning in pictures of friends and family and using them to create personalized cards and memorabilia. Consequently, when I was able to get a Migraph Hand Scanner bundled with Touch-Up for only fifty dollars, I was hooked, particularly since I knew that similar scanners are still considered a good deal at twice that amount. The Migraph Hand Scanner comes in a large green box which in turn contains two other boxes. The first of these contains the scanning wand, the cartridge port interface, and a power supply; the second box contains the Touch-Up software and manual. Connecting the scanner to the STe was as simple as plugging all three hardware items together and then plugging the whole jumble into the cartridge port. The cartridge port interface works well with the pass-through of my clock cartridge, but it appears as though the interface is designed to be the only cartridge, since it has an exposed area that is intended to be covered by the computer's case. Since the interface is not adjacent to the computer in my setup, I am a little worried about dust in the circuitry, and so I have been unplugging the interface when I am done with it. In ten or so cycles of plugging and unplugging, I have noticed that the pins of the cartridge are starting to show a little bit of wear, and consequently I am trying to figure out how to eliminate the clock cartridge from my system inexpensively. Perhaps I'll add a clock to my hard drive. Once everything was plugged in, I ran Touch-Up 1.60, which acts as the controller for the scanner. Touch-Up is basically a monochrome paint program designed for touching up scanned images with a few other features such as the ability to control the Migraph Hand Scanner itself. Since even a brief description of the program would take a separate article (which I may write someday), I will note simply that the program works well, although certain features are not very intuitive, and it seems to handle manipulations slower than some other paint programs I have used. There is an upgrade (version 2.5) available for forty dollars -- I have no idea what the upgrade contains, but I will look into it if I find myself doing a lot of scanning. Scanning is a simple process of selecting a resolution on both the software and hardware, choosing the coarseness of the scan, and setting the contrast sensitivity. Then, after selecting the size of the scan via Touch-Up, one needs to simply click on the "scan window" or "scan clip" button of the software. A green light comes on, and you slowly move the scanner head over the page to be scanned while holding down a button. If you move too fast, the scanner warns you by blinking the green light. The scan, once completed, shows up on the screen within seconds and may then be saved in one of several standard graphics formats, with monochrome image (.IMG) being the default. I have successfully done all that I intended to do with the scanner, but I have some reservations about recommending it. First of all, it is darn near impossible to do a straight scan that is longer than a couple inches. Consequentially, any scan larger than about 4 x 4 inches has distortion (see the graphic on page 6). There are a couple of ways to limit this, such as using a metal rule or a plastic tray designed specifically for hand scanners, and I intend to look into the purchase of these items. Secondly, most photographs do not scan well. Items with high contrast, like close-ups and line art scan fine, but the typical picture with varied colors and near constant lighting (such as nearly all indoor shots) just don't translate to black and white very well. This is not the Migraph's fault -- there is a reason why most newspaper cameras are loaded with black and white film even today. Thirdly, image manipulation really taxes an 8 Mhz STe. To compensate for the narrowness of the scanner, I have been scanning in my images sideways and then rotating them 90 degrees. This works fine, but takes well over a minute per pass, and these passes must then be aligned together to form the image. Also, optical character recognition seems to be a waste of time when I can type at over 60 words per minute and the STe can only manage around half that. Fourthly and finally, the hand scanner is only 4.08 inches wide -- any scan longer than that must be scanned in two or more passes. I don't consider my purchase a waste of money, however. With some trial and error, it should be possible to get good scans of my family, and I now have a digitized signature on file. I have the ability to send FAXes of forms (albeit with a "seam"), and although optical character recognition (OCR) is a bit beyond the STe's capabilities, I now know how the process works, and I will be able to use that process in the future on a Falcon. (Unfortunately, although the OCR software works fine on a Falcon, the Migraph Hand Scanner will work only from an ST or TT.) Despite this, I can understand why a recent review in a PC magazine recommended the avoidance of hand scanners, for they are not the ideal tool for most jobs. Good quality flatbed scanners and their drivers can be purchased starting at four or five hundred dollars in both the IBM and Atari worlds, and these would provide a quality that would eliminate most of my concerns. I personally can't justify five hundred dollars for something that is expected to be used a couple of times a month, however. My current opinion is that the Migraph Hand Scanner, though inferior to nearly any flatbed scanner, is certainly superior to no scanner. I'd recommend considering one if the limitations of the equipment are acceptable. They are for me.