1. An apparatus for evaluating information on a surface of an object being transported past a fixed point comprising: means for sensing the presence of said object in said apparatus to enable scanning of said surface, means enabled by said sensing means for scanning said surface due to movement of said object past said sensing means, means for receiving signals from said scanning means and for generating first serial streams of data representing successive lines of information on said object in one direction of scan, means for disposing bit of said first serial streams in a different order to provide a second serial data stream representing scan results from successive lines of information for only a direction orthogonally related to said one direction, and means coupled to said means for receiving and generating and said means for disposing responsive to said first data streams directly and said second data stream to determine characteristics of said information on said surface of said object.