[filmscanners] Re: large scanning project

["Tony Sleep" <tonysleep@halftone.co.uk>]

On 31/05/2006 lotusm50@sprynet.com wrote:
> Vuescan won't know that the scanner is there because
> the computer OS won't know the scanner is there -- or it might know
> something is there, but won't know what exactly it is or how to deal
> or
> communicate with it.

Are you sure? My understanding is :-

- the scanner must be able to talk SCSI commands, or USB. or Firewire.
That capability is hard wired, in its firmware

- Ed's difficulty has been reverse-engineering the precise commands used,
which are generally undocumented by mfrs. But where he has been able to
figure which commands are used and in what sequence (from sniffing the
SCSI/USB/Firewire using OEM software), VS is able to talk to the scanner.
It just squirts commands out onto the data bus. He hasn't been able to do
this with parallel-port scanners because the commands are non-standard,
bespoke things that vary from mfr to mfr. That isn't the case with
USB/SCSI/Firewire - they use fixed protocols.

- So far as I can see, there's no requirement for a driver in this
transaction, except a driver that interfaces the data bus
(SCSI/Firewire/USB) to the computer hardware via the PCI bus. That
provides the translation layer needed.

- I would therefore expect that so long as SCSI/USB/Firewire drivers are
available for 64 bit (of course they are:), VS will be able to communicate
with the scanner and deal with the data it gets back. Each data bus has
its own protocol. Once the commands or data are on the bus, there will be
no difference between 32 and 64 bit.

I may very well be hopelessly wrong about all this, but I am 1000% certain
  the LS1000 works just fine with XP with no Nikon driver ever having been
produced for that OS (W98 was the last), and nor does it need any driver
installed. It just needs the ASPI layer, which is the SCSI driver. As far
as I know, VS itself is 'driverless' - it talks directly to the scanner
hardware, via the data bus. Else he'd have to bundle tons of mfr. driver
with it, and he couldn't and doesn't.

I would suggest you ask Ed about 64bit support for all the scanners he
currently supports in 32bit. I suspect he'll smile and say 'of course'.
And actually it won't present him with any work, because the only issue is
64bit drivers for the data bus used, and they exist. Maybe he'll rewrite
VS to *be* 64bit for speed reasons, but that still won't affect the
situation. As long as VS can talk to the data bus, the data bus will talk
to the scanner.

What you aren't ever going to get is 64bit TWAIN drivers that scan
directly into the graphics application. That would need scanner-specific
drivers, but VS doesn't do TWAIN anyway. Personally I prefer standalone
scan s/w anyhow.

Regards

Tony Sleep
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