A 26 year old leading edge technology document scan on the left and a contemporary 'off the shelf' scan of the same test chart on the right. We have made progress. There were about $150,000 1970 dollars required to produce the left image, while the right image was produced with about $3,500.00 1996 dollars! The current price includes a computer, and software, none of which were included in the 1970 price. Only the scanner and the display were included in the 1970 cost.

There are some errors that are common to the two images. Both images suffer in the U V W X and Y of the upper case 8 point Bodoni Book, the thinner limbs appearing grey rather than black. Obviously the contemporary image is superior to the old one and gives several orders of magnitude better 'bang for the buck'.

Just a few more details, the left image original resolution was 66 lines per inch, the print was scanned at 300 lines per inch to reduce losses. In the the right image the test chart was scanned at 72 lines per inch. A critical viewer will notice the geometry of the left image is barreled, the lower left is pushed to the right and into the center, that is the result of the photographic process as display CRT tubes were then quite curved and a short focal length lens tends to exaggerate the curvature. Analog though it was, the geometry of the old system was quite good, but certainly not as good as that of the new scanner.

To prove that nothing is ever simple, my subjective reaction to the two pictures is that the new scanner is best at reproducing all the Futura font sizes but the Bodoni looks better in the old scan! Too bad it is presently impossible to directly compare the two systems and analyze the cause of the difference.

The sensor used in the left image had a wholesale cost over seven times greater than the retail cost of the whole scanner used to produce the right image today!

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