Thanks Mike

I think I may be being a little bit cautious - each reader / scanner costs
over £2500 (we need at least 12 - one for each office).  There are cheaper
ones but they tend not to duplex scan or handle to same volume and banks
reduce charges for corporate clients if they maintain their own hard copy of
payments.  So it worth getting the duplex scanners (oh, hard copy means, in
this case, that we "could" produce a hard copy, if needed).

I need to produce a report showing the life of the system.  Of course I can
set up the USB serial (bit more codeing to parse the data to start thats all)
but if any hardware upgrades will only have USB then I will need to work to
this.  I was just to see if anyone knows a site with details of the PS2 "fade
out".

Oh yes - Norman.  MICR scanners don't output the same stream as either
keyboards or mouses (or is it mice) - I have always found it better to ask if
you don't know than just guess - hense the question, sorry if it seemed to
upset you.