On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 11:16:45 +0200 Anthony Atkielski
(atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr) wrote:
>
> I've considered it--but how would I get the pictures back and forth
> between the
> two machines? I'd need to buy a router, at the very least, so add a few
> hundred
> more dollars. And the machine would need at least 512 MB of memory in
> order to
> hold the scans, so add a few hundred more. And I'd need a second copy of
> Photoshop, and a second top-quality monitor and video board, so add
> another
> $2000 or so. We are already into thousands of dollars just for this one
> chance,
> and I'm not even counting the scanner!
You're right. A revolver would be cheaper <g>
Actually for a long time I did scanning on a separate machine, actually a
P200 with 96Mb RAM. All you need is a couple of network cards and a
crossover cable, about 40GBP for a pair of 100Mbps NIC's, half that for
10Mbps. You don't need PS on the scanning machine, and as a result you
don't need much RAM - 128-192Mb for 4000ppi, and just let the bugger spool
if necessary. Nor do you need much CPU, as the scanner is slower than
anything else. Plenty of old tat like that around for £100 or less. Get a
s/h Millenium video card for £20 if you want decent graphics. I gave away
two perfect P200 machines to friends last year as nobody would buy them at
any price.
You can share the posh monitor, keyboard and mouse as I do, using a Belkin
Omni 2 port switch. 3 keypresses to toggle between the PC's.
You gain in terms of being able to edit one scan whilst the next is being
acquired.
Here the scanning PC doubles up as a print and fax server, mail server,
file repository with a couple of big disks, LAN DAT backup and CD burning
dogsbody. It also hosted this list for about 18m, the sole reason it got
upgraded to a Celeron400 as the P200 just couldn't keep up. It's not called
//SLAVE/ for nothing, it does all the rubbish you wouldn't want on a
machine you want to work at. Right now, it's burning scans to CD so I can
clear some space.
Having all that lot off and away from the main graphics machine is a great
help. Fewer apps and functions make it more stable. Yes, mine is a
'production machine' I use for work every day.
Frankly I think your policy of running 100+ apps, worth many thousands of
squids, on one (by now rather slow) machine, is rather perverse.
Oh, and I use a 1995 Dell P133 laptop for email,WP,accounts etc.
Anyhow, I thought NT4 did support USB with patches from MS... SP6 was it?
Regards
Tony Sleep
- Online portfolio & exhibit; + film scanner info
& comparisons
