Thirty five years ago Scitex introduced its first scanner. In fact, the device was a combination of laser scanner and recorder built into one unit. This 1972 product had been delivered to a Boston based company and then worked for year to come on scanning, digital enhancing and finally recording satellite black & white photograph for the American intelligence.
This was one of the first high resolution rotary scanner/recorder of its kind in the world. The core was a 5mW red HeNe laser that could scan both film and reflective prints on the input side; and record on Polaroid instant 4×5” positive or negative on the output side.
The system also included: HP 1000 computer (with 4KB RAM board), the software was written in Assembler, Magnetic tape to store image data (no disc) and Teletype keyboard/printer. That’s it.
If you want to see how the scanner looks from the inside, click on the picture above.
The images were Emailed to us by Yacov Laor, who had worked on the project.
You too, are invited to send us historically significant images like that