Heres some tech info on the ES&S optical scanners- originally from BRC?

[FogerRox]

Model 100 Precinct Ballot Counter :

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/m100.html

The Model 100 (M100) Precinct Ballot Counter mounted on Ballot Box.
See detailed Specification sheet for more details. The M100 is based on
the QNX 4.22 operating system and uses an Intel 286EX Processor.
The optical sensor is sensitive in the visual light spectrum and detects
changes in marking across the page as the ballot passes under the scan
head. The device is programmed to recognize ballots common to the
M150/550/650 line of ballot scanners and can take the ballots in any
orientation.
The M100 uses PCMCIA 512K/2M Memory Cards

to install the election
definition and to store/transfer the election results after polls close. The
PCMCIA card is secured during the election with a front panel/cover with
a seal point for wire security seals or lock.
The M100 has two RS232 ports. The ports are not used during election day and may be secured with
a metal cover like the PCMCIA slot cover.
---------------------------
RS232 port-

---------------------------
This is the Optech IIIP Eagle originally from BRC.


Model 550 Central Ballot Counter



The Model 550 (M550) Central Ballot Counter with the two printers
connected. The M550 is an optical mark sense scanner but uses a
different technology than the M100. . The M550 uses a proprietary
controller program rather than an operating system and is based
on a Z80 processor. The scan head uses fixed position sensors
for the front and back of the ballot and supports 1-3 columns on
the front and back of the ballot. See the detailed Specification
sheet for more details
The election program is installed in a removable EPROM which
can be secured in a safe location until needed. The RAM is volatile and does not retain the vote
count results when power is lost. Procedures require periodic checkpoint/recovery saves to a 3.5
diskettes until the election is completed. The diskettes are used to transfer and store the results to an
accumulation device such as another M550 or Unity server with Election Reporting Manager installed.
--------------------------------


July 1976-Zilog releases the 2.5 MHz Z80, an 8-bit microprocessor whose instruction set is a superset of the Intel 8080.


History and description
The Z80 came about when Federico Faggin left Intel after working on the 8080, and by July 1976 Zilog had the Z80 on the market. It was designed to be binary compatible with the Intel 8080 so that most 8080 code could run unmodified on it, notably the CP/M operating system.

The Z80 offered eight real improvements over the 8080:

An enhanced instruction set including new IX and IY index registers and instructions for them
Two separate register files, which could be quickly switched, to speed up response to interrupts
Block move, block I/O, and byte search instructions
Bit manipulation instructions
A built-in DRAM refresh address counter that would otherwise have to be provided by external circuitry
Single 5 Volt power supply
Fewer outboard support chips required for clock generation and interface to memory and I/O
A much lower price
The Z80 quickly took over from the 8080 in the market, and became one of the most popular 8-bit CPUs. Later versions increased in speed from the early models' 2.5 MHz up to as much as 20 MHz.

Perhaps a key to the success of the Z80 was the built-in DRAM refresh, which allowed systems to be built with fewer support chips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z80


---------------------------------

Model 650 Central Ballot Counter

The Model 650 (M650) Central Ballot Counter with the two printers
connected. The M650 uses the similar optical mark sensor design
as the M550 but has a straight through ballot feed path to a
receiver bin to the side. The M650 is a faster counter than the
M150 or M550. See the detailed Specification sheet for more
details. The M650 is based on QNX 4.25 operating system.
The M650 has an internal solid state hard drive and can retain
election results if power is lost but the operator must save the
results periodically to the hard-drive. Results are not stored automatically. The M650 uses 100MByte Zip disks to install the election definition to the hard-drive
and to save, transfer, and restore results to another scanner or Unity ERM module.
--------------------------
Page 6 of 10
1. Unity Server
a. Model and Serial Number: Dell D600 Latitude laptop, Dell #: C5MFW41
b. Processor: Intel Pentium M 1.7GHz
c. Memory: 1024 Mbytes installed
d. Operating System: Windows XP, Service Pk 1
e. Hard Drive: 30 GBytes
f. Other drives:
i. Removable 3.5 Diskette Drive module
ii. Removable CD-R/DVD Drive module
iii. Iomega 250 Zip Drive (USB)
iv. Omni Pro, PCMCIA Card Reader/Writer
v. EMP-11 EEProm burner (modified to use a Bakelisht carrier).
g. Printer: HP 4100
h. Display: Laptop
i. Keyboard: Laptop
j. Mouse: ATI Touchpad/optional bus mouse
k. Communication Ports:
i. Internal Modem. Not used for testing
ii. Ethernet port. Not used for testing.
l. COTS Software:
i. Crystal Reports 9.0
ii. Codebase 6.5, revision 3 (MDAO compatible database)
iii. Adpbe Acr\obat Standard 5.0.5 with special Helvitica font
iv. MS Access (for Audit Manager)
v. RMCobol 7.50.01,
vi. COBOL WOW 3.12,
vii. OmniDrive driver version 2.21 (standard drive),
viii. USB Drive version 1.72
ix. Iomega Zip Disk (USB-250MB) ver 3.2.1.5
x. Java 2, Rel 1.4.2_3 (this is an older version than what was initially installed on the
server)
xi. Omni Driver
2. Voting Unit(s)
a. Model and Serial Number: M100
b. Model and Serial Number: M550
c. Model and Serial Number: M650
Observations:
1. No definition or recommendations for securing the Windows environment is provided by the
vendor. ES&S recommends isolation of the Unity servers with no telecommunications or other
uses ould expose the servers to virus or other forms of attack.
2. The design of Unity is a mix of different programming environments and databases. The election
definition and ballot layout modules use a DAO (MS Access type) database for maintaining
access controls as well as the election definition itself. The hardware programming and election
reporting modules use COBOL and indexed sequential databases.
a. Controls on Audit Manager (AM) (MS Access type database)

ES&S optical scan info from-

www.ss.ca.gov/elections/090904_2_consultant_redact.pdf

----------------------------
This document announces the BRC breakup, forced by the DOJ. Note that it is dated 1997. This event has widely been reported as occuring in 1999.

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1997/November97/489at.htm.html
-----------------

This document shows that the Optech III is sold by Sequoia And ES&S. This is the Optical scanner that BRC made.

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems.pdf
-------------------------------

Sequoia Scanner uses DOS.
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc38/1583/emailtg2/msg00005.html

[Ellipsis]

1. On The memory card....

When it's erased... can you resurrect the data like you can on a hard drive?

And a perspective:

In the day ... a lot of viruses where transmitted to the computer when the floppy/removable volume was inserted.
The cpu makes an inquiry ... when the volume reports it's directory file it gets infected. See my point on this?


The 550 looks "clanky".

[FogerRox]

2. "When it's erased... can you resurrect the data like you can

on a hard drive? I dunno-- I'd guess yes you could.

as to your other point-- might we be talking not viruses, but vote count adjustments? >wink<

[Ellipsis]

3. Fowler-Norheim tunnelling

I feel like I just sneezed.

.....just thinking out loud. Methinks the answer to my first question is no... it is much more difficult or perhaps impossible to resurrect the data. ...need an engineers perspective.


Flash Memory
Inside the chip is a grid of columns and rows, with a two-transistor cell at each intersecting point on the grid. The two transistors are separated by a thin oxide layer. One of the transistors is known as the floating gate, and the other one is the control gate. The floating gate's only link to the row, or wordline, is through the control gate. As long as this link is in place, the cell has a value of "1." To change the cell value to a "0" requires a curious process called Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. Tunneling is used to alter the placement of electrons in the floating gate. An electrical charge, usually between 10 and 13 volts, is applied to the floating gate. The charge comes from the column, or bitline, enters the floating gate and drains to a ground.

This charge causes the floating-gate transistor to act like an electron gun. The excited, negatively charged electrons are pushed through and trapped on the other side of the oxide layer, which acquires a negative charge. The electrons act as a barrier between the control gate and the floating gate. A device called a cell sensor monitors the level of the charge passing through the floating gate. If the flow through the gate is greater than fifty percent of the charge, it has a value of "1." If the charge passing through drops below the fifty-percent threshold, the value changes to "0."

The electrons in the cells of a Flash-memory chip can be returned to normal ("1") by the application of an electric field, a higher-voltage charge. Flash memory uses in-circuit wiring to apply this electric field either to the entire chip or to predetermined sections known as blocks. This erases the targeted area of the chip, which can then be rewritten.

Solid-State: Cards
electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) chips because instead of erasing one byte at a time, it erases a block or the entire chip. Flash-memory storage devices such as CompactFlash or SmartMedia cards are today's most common form of electronic nonvolatile memory. CompactFlash cards were developed by Sandisk in 1994, and they are different from SmartMedia cards in two important ways: They are thicker, and they utilize a controller chip.

CompactFlash consists of a small circuit board with Flash-memory chips and a dedicated controller chip, all encased in a rugged shell that is several times thicker than a SmartMedia card. The increased thickness of the card allows for greater storage capacity.
SmartMedia cards are capable of fast, reliable performance while allowing you to specify the data you wish to keep. They are small, lightweight and easy to use



*wink* yes

Merry Christmas Foger and thank you for tenacity wisdom and humor.