Mihaly-Traub scanner from flea-market?

[DrZarkov]

Yesterday I was in Apeldoorn (The Netherlands) at the HAM-fair. Some dealers with electronic junk had some so called "omnidirectional horizontal scanners" as used in some supermarkets to read the barcodes (I talk about devices like those: http://www.barvar.com/Fixed-Position-Scanner-s/239.htm).

I didn't buy it, because I thought I have no need for it, but later at home I thought how they are working. There is a laser-LED in a fixed position, a rotating mirror, and some mirrors in a half round to send the light through the glas plate. As i understood some of the descriptions I found in the internet, it scans the object in lines, and a software finds the barcode. It should be possible to modify such a scanner (we just need the mechanics, no laser, no software!) for use with mechanical TV.

So next time I will keep my eyes open and just buy it!

[Viewmaster]

Maybe feed an NBTV signal into suitable software that converts to barcode type language. Then it prints it out as a rotary display onto paper.
Put it on your gramophone with the barcode reader mounted above on a leadscrew and play back the NBTV. If you don't like a particular section, edit it out by cutting it out with a pair of scissors!
Albert

[Viewmaster]

Additional.......

Small portable barcode readers are very cheap to buy on eBay. About £8.
Now I wonder if they read continuously or in short bars. If continuous then maybe ..........................?

Albert.

[DrZarkov]

Some of those handscanners write a kind of parabel, turned in many directions. But those horizontal scanners write lines, following one PDF-documention for that certain model I found it was 18 lines. You don't need any laser, or software, just the mechanics. Place a LED instead of the laser and slow down the rotating mirror, and you have an 18 lines Televisor. It shouldn't be too difficult to increase it to 36 lines just by changing the rotating mirror.

[Viewmaster]

My suggestion was just tongue in cheek...I did put a wink in it
NBTV digitalised for bar code would be too slow on a gramophone turntable unless it revolved at big rate of knots.
But it might stimulate further NBTV ideas?
Albert.

[DrZarkov]

Well, encoding sound in dots and put it on a disc is not quite a new idea. It is called CD...

To make it much simpler: About 100 years ago, when the sound of a grammophone was poor, the "Orchestrions" were popular. Or much simpler: little pipe organs played automatically by discs or cardboards with dots in it. You could use it to play mechanically stored testcards.

Mac Dieckmann, a pupil of Prof. Ferdinand Braun (one of the CRT pioneers suggested in 1906 to use the CRT for television. Prof. Braun called the idea of television "rubish like the perpetuum mobile", but that did not stop Dieckmann to experiment with the CRT. And here we are back: In 1906 there was no usable camera, so Dieckmann uses a Nipkow-disc with metal brushes instead of apertures. He made a simple picture (the name "Braun") on a piece of metal with paper on it, when the brush got contact with the metal, the cathode ray was viewable. When he turned the metal picture, even movement was possible.

And forget barcode.

[Viewmaster]

Well, encoding sound in dots and put it on a disc is not quite a new idea. It is called CD...
And forget barcode.

I was trying to stimulate new avenues, so I will not forget barcode, although I have the CD and its advantages!
Somehow just £7 for a barcode reader seems an invitation to try something new...but I cannot think what!

Didn't someone here once suggest that one might put digital(?) signals all around a Nipkow disc in spirals like a gramophone record and play it back like a record? Was it Stephen or Steven or someone else?
Albert.

[DrZarkov]

What you can make with a barcode reader is using it for sync. With a laser it will be more precisely than a common infrared LED. I would youse the pen-type scanner as they were used many years ago for programming a videorecorder from certain brands or for use with a PC.

[Stephen]

I think that Mr Traub's scanner is the most elegant of the optical-type scanning devices. It would be fantastic if it is possible to modify a barcode scanner into a Traub scanner for NBTV use.