Re: Linux Support for Current Microtek Scanners

From: Karsten Festag (karsten.festag@t-online.de)
Date: Wed Nov 22 2000 - 13:30:34 PST

  • Next message: Oliver Neukum: "Re: Linux Support for Current Microtek Scanners"

    Hi Michael,

    no problem with your questions, I will try to explain what we do to write
    scanner software.

    When you do a scan with Windows, the Microtek ScanWizard is started. Here you
    can do a preview scan and make all the settings: gray or color image, image
    resolution, which area should be scanned etc....
    If you then press the SCAN button, the ScanWizard translates this settings into
    commands and sends them to the scanner. Then it asks the scanner to return the
    image data and processes the data to get an image file
    So we have to create a program like ScanWizard but on Linux.

    Currently there are mainly three methods to get commands to and data from the
    scanner: A SCSI interface, a parallel printer port or an USB port.
    Because SCSI was the first and is still the most powerful interface, the
    commands that control the scanner are SCSI commands (or SCSI2 which is newer).

    SCSI commands can be transfered not only via a SCSI interface but also via a
    parallel port. Thats why the Windows scantest program tells you that your
    interface is "smplscsi" (Simple SCSI) if you have an parport scanner.
    Some vendors of parport and USB scanners though created their own command sets.

    (Unfortunately I don't know if your USB scanners also use SCSI commands because
    I have none. But it would make sense. )

    Some SCSI commands are standardized but many of them are vendor specific. That
    means, if I want to control the scanner with my software I have to know all
    relevant SCSI commands. There is a document on your ftp site which is called
    "SCSI Command Set for Microtek scanner, Revision 2.2.4 from Aug. 6, 1997". It
    contains a pretty good documentation for older models but is very outdated
    now. A new version of this document would help us a lot.

    And of course the source code of the ScanWizard that your software engineers
    created would give us most interesting information but normally source code is
    confidental and I assume it is also at Microtek.

    I hope this helps you to help us! If you have further questions don't hesitate.

    Karsten

    Michael Papet wrote:

    > Karsten,
    >
    > I'm in marketing and am trying to get better Linux support for our current
    > scanners. I know I'm asking dumb questions now, but give me a little time.
    > I have much to learn. Any information you can give me would help me get the
    > information you need from our engineers.
    >
    > I'm trying to keep the Linux community interested and developing stuff for
    > our products. I don't have much time to do this but I'll do my best. I
    > know we have sold a whole lot of SCSI scanners so I'll see what I can do.
    >
    > Best regards,
    >
    > Michael Papet
    > Product Specialist
    > Microtek Labs Inc.

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