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Mircrofiche Project



I thought I would inform everybody of my current microfiche project. I 
should say right up front that this project is a time/weather permitting
kind of thing.

I recently purchased through BAS the fiches for the E28 parts catalog
and repair manual.  I don't want to have the hassle of having an old
antiquated mirco film reader hanging around and using up space so I am
planning on resurrecting the old Optronix film scanner at work (can do
10" by 10" at 12.5 um if needed) to scan the fiches into digital data.  

Since this data will end up being a compressed binary image I don't
expect the final data size to be very large.  My personal goal is to
then have the data either retrievable on computer or print it out
double sided.

Now I would like to give this E28 work to other BMW infobahners as well
as scan fiches for other models (time permitting) but I have to be
mindful of BMW's copyright.  So I am looking for suggestions from
legally competent types on a way I can do this without getting in
trouble.  I guess there is also the very slim remote unlikely chance
that BMW may authorize us to distribute this version of the data.

My own first thought is that if one already owns the microfiche version
of the data, it can't be illegal to own a digital version for private
use.

I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone who knows of there is a
suitable commercial product that we could use to organize all the image
data.

All suggestions, comments, volunteers and criticisms welcome.

- --rod.

- -- 
Rod Barman, Dept. of E.E., University of British Columbia
rodb@domain.elided