Hertzfeld was working on a way to output software code onto paper, as that would save the cost of disks and shipping. The paper would then be scanned using Thunderscan which he developed the software for, and turned back into software on the Mac. No more floppy disks. You'd have a notebook of backup copies on paper, to be scanned in if something happened to your disk.
I extrapolated that if he did create such software, it should work on text as well. It probably never happened though, as there was too much profit to be made in physical sales of disks, not everyone had a Thunderscanner, and how would you prevent piracy?
Anyway, as far as the Thunderscan goes, I found this which raised a few questions. This adaptor appears to allow the Thunderscan to be plugged into the external floppy drive port, with a passthrough. It also has a Mini DIN 8 connector to plug an Imagewriter II into it as well (assume the Thunderscan worked on it as well).
So what was the rationale for this? To free up the serial ports for a modem and dedicated printer? Or was it designed to increase the speed of input, in much the same way Apple broke their own rules and used the floppy port to attach the HD20 for faster transfer rates? Evidently, the serial port also allows a second mouse to be input, so it obviously accepts standard serial port input data, without any special software. So, is it at a faster rate than a regular serial port? Pretty odd thing.
I extrapolated that if he did create such software, it should work on text as well. It probably never happened though, as there was too much profit to be made in physical sales of disks, not everyone had a Thunderscanner, and how would you prevent piracy?
Anyway, as far as the Thunderscan goes, I found this which raised a few questions. This adaptor appears to allow the Thunderscan to be plugged into the external floppy drive port, with a passthrough. It also has a Mini DIN 8 connector to plug an Imagewriter II into it as well (assume the Thunderscan worked on it as well).
So what was the rationale for this? To free up the serial ports for a modem and dedicated printer? Or was it designed to increase the speed of input, in much the same way Apple broke their own rules and used the floppy port to attach the HD20 for faster transfer rates? Evidently, the serial port also allows a second mouse to be input, so it obviously accepts standard serial port input data, without any special software. So, is it at a faster rate than a regular serial port? Pretty odd thing.