It was his goal to have a low cost image analysis system that the average bench scientist could afford and deploy. Rasband wanted to create a system that was smaller and more affordable than the software systems that required the $150,000 PDP-11 minicomputers in use at the time. He had developed an image analysis program called “Image” for the PDP-11 minicomputer. The program ran an imaging system that used a rotating drum film scanner to digitize images and a 512×512 frame buffer to display the digitized images and supported a custom-built joystick that could be used to outline objects. The PDP-11 systems were used to analyze gels, autoradiographs, and CT, MRI and PET images.
