Compaq Computer Corp’s scanning keyboard available on $2,200 Presario 7232 – 120MHz Pentium, 8Mb, 1.6Gb disk, quad speed CD- ROM and 28.8Kbps modem – is also available separately for $350 for any Windows machine that will run the companion Visioneer Inc software, the Wall Street Journal points out. The black-and-white scanner is installed along the back of a relatively deep keyboard with the paper slot just above the function keys, and takes paper up to 8.5 wide by 30 long – just putting in a piece of paper sets it off; as soon as the scan is complete, Visioneer’s PaperPort software appears on the screen with options to store an image of the document, annotate it, rotate or flip it or translate the thing into ASCII text using optical character recognition software, send it as a facsimile message or make copies of it on the printer.
