Erase all-in-one-scanner images?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mint
  • Start date Start date
M

Mint

I was thinking about a story that showed how many copiers have hard
drives that store images.

The reporter found one copier from the D.A. office with all kinds of
stuff on it.

Do all-in-one computer scanners do the same thing?

If so, how do you erase previous scans.

Thanks,
Andy
 
I was thinking about a story that showed how many copiers have hard
drives that store images.

The reporter found one copier from the D.A. office with all kinds of
stuff on it.

Do all-in-one computer scanners do the same thing?

If so, how do you erase previous scans.
Click to expand...
No.

I haven't a clue how common it is for copy machines to have a hard drive.
Chances are good it only applies to industrial copy machines, where one
might want multiple copies and hence need the storage space.

Note there was a time when some laser printers had the ability to be
hooked to external hard drives, but that seems well in the past. They may
exist, but not for most of us. It was one way of getting enough memory
space, when RAM was pretty expensive (and hard drives were relatively
small). I can't remember how much RAM I put in my HP-4P laser printer,
but it's at least 8megs, and there are more slots. There was no point in
filling it up, even though I had the RAM lying around to do it. There's
nothing I do that requires more RAM.

Consumer equipment won't have hard drives. They are intended for use
with computers, where the storage can sit, and they are intended for
low levels of printing.

It's only top-end use that might require repeated printings of the same
material. So if you were self-publishing a book, you might keep the book
on a hard drive connected to the laser printer, so you didn't need to
transfer the book to the printer each time an order came in and you needed
to print the book. Likewise an expensive copying machine, at the very
least they don't connect to computers so they can't rely on a computer for
storage.

Michael
 
No.

I haven't a clue how common it is for copy machines to have a hard drive.
Chances are good it only applies to industrial copy machines, where one
might want multiple copies and hence need the storage space.

Note there was a time when some laser printers had the ability to be
hooked to external hard drives, but that seems well in the past. They
may exist, but not for most of us. It was one way of getting enough
memory space, when RAM was pretty expensive (and hard drives were
relatively small). I can't remember how much RAM I put in my HP-4P laser
printer, but it's at least 8megs, and there are more slots. There was no
point in
filling it up, even though I had the RAM lying around to do it. There's
nothing I do that requires more RAM.

Consumer equipment won't have hard drives. They are intended for use
with computers, where the storage can sit, and they are intended for
low levels of printing.

It's only top-end use that might require repeated printings of the same
material. So if you were self-publishing a book, you might keep the book
on a hard drive connected to the laser printer, so you didn't need to
transfer the book to the printer each time an order came in and you
needed to print the book. Likewise an expensive copying machine, at the
very least they don't connect to computers so they can't rely on a
computer for
storage.

Michael
Click to expand...
Same holds true of just many devices that include FAXing on a delayed
basis or has a redial option with out requiring the original document
remaining in the scanner. Makes sending a resume by FAX something to
consider, especially with all the personal info supplied...
 
Mint said:
I was thinking about a story that showed how many copiers have hard
drives that store images.

The reporter found one copier from the D.A. office with all kinds of
stuff on it.

Do all-in-one computer scanners do the same thing?

If so, how do you erase previous scans.

Thanks,
Andy
Click to expand...

It is all a matter of material cost. How much cost
would a hard drive, add to the cost of the all-in-one ?
At what point, does the additional storage become
advantageous, compared to RAM or NAND flash ?

This short paper, details what was found inside a
copier. The hard drive is only 5.6GB, and had four
partitions. RAM storage in the copier was 128MB.
While the drive isn't large in this case, it's
still large enough to hold sensitive documents.

http://www.willassen.no/pub/copier-en.pdf

I'm still looking for a statement, about the
design intent. Why was a hard drive necessary
in the copier in the first place ? And the
usage pattern doesn't have to be as described
either. They could, for example, only store
the last two pages copied, by using the hard
drive in a double buffer kind of mode. Why did
all the pages have to be stored, in a FIFO mode ?
Obviously, someone desired an audit trail,
for some reason. Or the ability to snoop.

Paul
 
Same holds true of just many devices that include FAXing on a delayed basis
or has a redial option with out requiring the original document remaining in
the scanner. Makes sending a resume by FAX something to consider, especially
with all the personal info supplied...
Click to expand...
That's one I hadn't thought of.

But, let's take late 1993 when I got my first hard drive, an 80meg. It
must have been at least $400. I can't remember how much 1meg SIMMS were
that year, but I didnt' expand that computer until the fall of 1996, when
I paid $40 for four 1meg SIMMS. So it would have cost at least $800 to
get 80megs of RAM in 1993, if a computer would hold that much. A hard
drive had other problems, but it came out cheaper and had some advantages.

Now, 512meg MP3 players are tossed out, we can get memory so cheap that we
can keep thousands of songs on MP3 players, in memory rather than hard
drive. I paid $40 at the end of August to get a 16gig microSD card to
expand my MP3 player. Memory has become cheap enough that one can hold a
sizeable file in a device without needing a hard drive. So there has to be
a good reason for a hard drive, unlike the old days when there might not
have been much option.

Michael
 
That's one I hadn't thought of.

But, let's take late 1993 when I got my first hard drive, an 80meg.  It
must have been at least $400.  I can't remember how much 1meg SIMMS were
that year, but I didnt' expand that computer until the fall of 1996, when
I paid $40 for four 1meg SIMMS.  So it would have cost at least $800 to
get 80megs of RAM in 1993, if a computer would hold that much.  A hard
drive had other problems, but it came out cheaper and had some advantages..

Now, 512meg MP3 players are tossed out, we can get memory so cheap that we
can keep thousands of songs on MP3 players, in memory rather than hard
drive.  I paid $40 at the end of August to get a 16gig microSD card to
expand my MP3 player.  Memory has become cheap enough that one can holda
sizeable file in a device without needing a hard drive. So there has to be
a good reason for a hard drive, unlike the old days when there might not
have been much option.

   Michael
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the interesting info.

Andy
 
Same holds true of just many devices that include FAXing on a delayed
basis or has a redial option with out requiring the original document
remaining in the scanner.  Makes sending a resume by FAX something to
consider, especially with all the personal info supplied...
Click to expand...

Good point to remember that applies even to fax modems if you keep the
transmitted pages as .tif images.

Andy
 
No.

I haven't a clue how common it is for copy machines to have a hard drive.
Chances are good it only applies to industrial copy machines, where one
might want multiple copies and hence need the storage space.
Click to expand...

Multiple copies could be implemented without a HD. Collated copies,
though..., or the interrupt feature is another matter.
 
Same holds true of just many devices that include FAXing on a delayed
basis or has a redial option with out requiring the original document
remaining in the scanner. Makes sending a resume by FAX something to
consider, especially with all the personal info supplied...
Click to expand...

I've dealt with faxes with such capabilities without HDs. Any time
there was a document in memory (which included any time you faxed
something as it always scanned everything before sending) there would
be a status line saying what percent of memory remained. Presumably
it would refuse to do certain things when that hit 0% but I never saw
it drop below the high 80's.
 
But, let's take late 1993 when I got my first hard drive, an 80meg. It
must have been at least $400. I can't remember how much 1meg SIMMS were
that year, but I didnt' expand that computer until the fall of 1996, when
I paid $40 for four 1meg SIMMS. So it would have cost at least $800 to
get 80megs of RAM in 1993, if a computer would hold that much. A hard
drive had other problems, but it came out cheaper and had some advantages.
Click to expand...

I can go back even further into the stone age--hundreds of dollars for
64K of ram.
 
I'm still looking for a statement, about the
design intent. Why was a hard drive necessary
in the copier in the first place ? And the
usage pattern doesn't have to be as described
either. They could, for example, only store
the last two pages copied, by using the hard
drive in a double buffer kind of mode. Why did
all the pages have to be stored, in a FIFO mode ?
Obviously, someone desired an audit trail,
for some reason. Or the ability to snoop.
Click to expand...

Off the top of my head I can think of a simple reason--distribute the
wear over the HD.

As for why it would be needed:

1) Multi-page jobs that print collated.

2) Some copiers have interrupt functions.
 
Back
Top