My Favourite Computer Peripheral
On Hemispheric Views episode 155 we got to talking about old computer peripherals. We agreed to put something on our respective blogs about our favourite peripheral1 of all time.
Martin talked about, and has blogged about, his R2-D2 device.
I mentioned on the show that I had a memory of an early flatbed scanner I had. It may have even connected to my Amiga, but it was definitely connected to my Packard-Bell 166MHz MMX PC.
I couldn’t remember the name of the device at time of recording, but I knew it was a SCSI-connected Canon flatbed scanner. I remember that it created “massive” files when scanning at full resolution.
Subsequent research has helped me narrow it down to either the Canon CanoScan 300 or CanoScan 600. I am pretty sure I had the 300. But I can’t be absolutely certain. I also can’t find any pictures of it online to verify it, or even show it.
I do know I loved that scanner. I don’t even know why I wanted a scanner so badly. But it does track with my personality. I’ve been obsessed with digital management and paperless from a strangely young age. I used to want to be a ‘businessman’, whatever that meant to a young boy. This was my way of mainfesting a future life, I guess?
Anyway, Canon, thank you for making awesome late 1990s scanner hardware.
If you want to play along with this topic, I encourage you to listen to the podcast, and blog/post about your favourite peripheral. Throw it up on Mastodon and give it a tag #HemisphericPeripherals. Let’s gather up all those favourite peripherals - old or new!
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Whenever I hear the word peripheral, I have memories of a departed friend of mine from my tweenage years who could never say the word, so would instead call them “preherfals”. To this day, when I see or hear the word peripheral, my internal voice says preherfal. ↩︎