On Sat, 17 Oct 1998 17:16:51 +0200, Bernd did scribe :-
> some weeks ago someone asked, whether his "Black Widow" scanner is
> supported by sane, and I suggested to try it with one of the microtek
> backends, because it was mentioned, that this device had an "empty"
> vendor string in its inquiry information.
large snip etc...
Black Widow are rebadged PIE kit (see www.scanace.com) I have recently
been through the mill with them and have received the SCSI control
information for the engine. Unfortunately, I had to sign an NDA for the
information, however I CAN disclose the source that I produce. The NDA
specifically allows this but prevents me from disclosing the actual
technical reference (I did point out that the source code when released
would be a pretty good form of "documentation" for the internal workings
of the scanner but they didn't seem bothered about this.)
In the last few days I have started working on the back end, but it will
be some time before I'm ready to release anything, simply because of time
constraints and work load. I started looking for the info in February
1998 and didn't get the specs until September 1998. In February I had
a lot more spare time than I do now.
I'm hoping to release an early version of the backend before 1999, but
it is too early and life is too chaotic at the moment to be any more
specific than that (I could always go and work for M$ and say 1999 but
really mean 2001 ;-))
>
> But there are also some things, that are unusual for Microtek scanners.
>
I started the work by looking at all the scanner backends that come
supplied with sane-0.74 and can confirm that the PIE kit doesn't match
any of them :-( Believe me I have no intention of reinventing the
wheel. To date this is pretty much all that I have done, I will keep
the group informed as I progress. Apart from Black Widow, I do not know
if they produce scanners for any other manufacturers. I will document
the source code with lots of comments when I release it so that it can
be used to check for similarities.
If somebody on the list feels they can do the job any quicker then
please let me know, the contact details for PIE are below, they will
send anybody the details once they have a signed NDA in their posession.
For further details see :-
or email :-
support@scanace.com
pascal@scanace.com
Pascal has been my main contact at PIE and has been extremely helpful
and instrumental in getting the company to release the information so
please don't give him any grief.
> - The response type code is 0x01 instead of 0x02, which, according to
> my understanding of the SCSI-2 spec, means, that it is some kind
> of pre-SCSI-2 standard (CCS). I don't know, if a backend should take
> care of this.
The inquiry result doesn't seem to follow the spec, the spec does say
0x02 for the response code, could you have transcribed the data
incorrectly ?
Regards,
Dave Restall.
mail/sane/981018.tx sane
bernd@aquila.muc.de
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