They show up everywhere. I never paid any attention to them since they are sprocketless and don't look very well made. I just discovered that they are used frequently for video transfer. A company called Moviestuff used to modify them and sell them for big bucks -- although I'm not sure if that included the video camera.

They can be picked up rather cheaply (comparitively), although some sellers think they're made of gold. I'm curious if anyone here has used them. From what I gather, they max out at 18fps, and some of the "higher-end" models have controls to run at slower speeds, though none seem to be "variable." Some have zoom lens, but from the Super 8 databases, the "best" ones are still only f 1.4. Most take incandecents, but later ones take halogen. Some people regard these projectors highly enough that they converted them to use halogens.

And, oh yea, they are also available rebranded by companies like Montgomery Wards (sometimes badged as just "Wards"), Sears, Emdeko, and probably a few others.

Are any of these worth picking up for $30-$40 just for giggles?

It took me a while to get the info, since there are tons of things written about it without a simple explanation. Here it is:

GAF dual-8 machines were modified by this "Moviestuff" company, almost 20 years ago. (They now have more sophisticated machines to transfer 8mm film). The main changes were a) removing the shutter, b) replacing the light source, c) allowing the projector to run only at 6fps (a feature of many of the GAFs) d) attaching a "timing" disc somehow to one of the pulleys that sent a signal out of the machine to a Windows XP machine and special mouse. (I think the mouse receives a signal from the projector to "click" so the software captures that camcorder feed at that very instant -- a single frame of film.) You supplied the camcorder of your choice, as long as it could be hooked up to the PC. They also supplied a "diffuser" lens which the "Workprinter" (the modified GAF projector) projected into before being captured by your camcorder.

What confused me was people calling this a "frame-by-frame" capture, but they were using conventional camcorders. I thought you needed a "still picture" camera to grab individual frames. You don't, because of the software.

Basically, the "timing disc" trigers the special software (supplied with the product) to basically take a screenshot, so-to-speak, of the camcorder's feed. The software is not capturing the normal feed from the camcorder -- which would be a blur of film running thru the gate without a shutter. The magic software somehow then compiles each individual pic of the frame into a "movie" at the frame rate you want. So basically this is just like scanning each individual frame into a jpeg (though I'm not sure which format was used.)

I know this digresses from my stated topic, but it is what triggered my curiosity about these GAF machines. Why were they used? I assume because they were plentiful and cheap, more than anything else. And perhaps easily modifiable since they had no unneccesary bells and whistles. Also, many models had a "slow-motion" feature which ran the film at 6fps.

The use of these GAFS for this purpose contradicts what I had heard about them -- that they were unkind to film. Now as far as I can tell, no modifications were made to the film path and transport, so if the GAFs scratched or pulled sprockets, they would do so as well in the modified version, though for the latter, running at no more than 6fps would certainly reduce the risk.

The original GAF lens is used in the modified GAF for this "workprinter", albeit with that diffuser lens. What confused me was that people on the other channel were also putting lenses from 16mm projectors in these modified GAFs and not using the diffuser lenses at all.

The biggest surprise is that I could not find one "Workprinter-XP" on eBay for sale. From what I gather, though, it is mostly useless without an old Windows XP machine, as well as the now unobtainable and unsupported software that captures each frame of your film and compiles it into a movie. (Windows XP is also long unsupported!) You also needed 3 special internal hard drives for the software to work. Why? I haven't a clue. The whole thing sounds like a big kluge to me and worthy of Rube Goldberg.