he OCR-V3050 was a smaller, lighter general-purpose form OCR system than its predecessors that opened the way for compact OCR systems because it could be configured with a desktop scanner and a deskside character recognition unit. Despite its compact size, it could read easily confused characters and cursive characters. The OCR-V3050 provided even better recognition accuracy of ordinary handwritten characters and offered an advanced knowledge process function that automatically corrected misrecognized characters using a word lookup database. A function to read handwritten kanji characters was available as an option. The kanji character recognition unit could also be placed in a compact deskside configuration.
OCR systems had been made more compact by implementing functions previously implemented in hardware with software running on an MPU. For the OCR-V3050, however, Toshiba made the system more compact without compromising recognition speed or accuracy by continuing to use hardware and custom IC chips for those processes requiring high speeds. An outline structure matching technique, a detailed character-shape look-up method, was used in addition to the multiple similarity method for character recognition. Toshiba improved the outline structure matching technique from previous versions, expanding its coverage to letters, numbers, katakana characters, and symbols and boosting its recognition performance. This technology was used on many later Toshiba OCR products as a key recognition technique. The knowledge process was also used extensively on this and future models as a function for recognizing katakana and kanji characters.
The basic specifications of the OCR-V3050 were as follows:
- Read speeds: 30 sheets per minute
(reading A4 forms with 10 lines and 30 characters per line) - Readable characters: Handwritten letters, numbers, katakana characters, symbols, and kanji characters; printed characters in JIS OCR-B and other fonts
- Readable forms: 74 x 52 mm to 364 x 305 mm (l x w)
- Scanner dimensions and weight: 480 x 650 x 320 mm (w x d x h), approximately 50 kilograms
- Character recognition unit dimensions and weight: 200 x 800 x 700 mm (w x d x h), approximately 50 kilograms
