Re: filmscanners: Fast, decent, low res scans

["Richard N. Moyer" <dickmoyer@mail.earthlink.net>]

One of the things to remember is this: Not all so-called PCI (SCSI) 
cards are really SCSI cards. What I mean is that many companies 
include "SCSI" cards which are/were not conformant with the 
standards. This is very important (conformance with the Standard), 
and goes back to the discussion about "Open" and "Control". The IEEE 
standards are long and complex, and technical, including the various 
ramifications of the SCSI Standard. Companies have often offered 
"abbreviated" SCSI (really shouldn't even use the term SCSI) cards 
which leave out portions of the standard, to cheapen the cost of the 
card - meaning fewer components. They didn't tell you this. This was 
particularly a problem for PC users, who, more often than Mac users, 
needed SCSI attachment capability. Most of these "stunted" cards 
would connect only the scanner included in the package, and would 
never connect more than one device on a chain in accordance with the 
SCSI standard. I can name names of companies who did this, some might 
surprise you. They did what they thought they could get away with; 
cost foremost in mind. Only to find out "that a penny saved - - - -". 
The same thing has happened with software. Yes there are Standards at 
play here to, one of which you are using now - MIME used in e-mail. 
And the biggest abuser was - - guess who?


>Phil wrote:
>
>>Hello All,
>>
>>Two weeks ago I e-mailed the list to ask you all about making fast, decent
>>low res scans.
>>
>>I went ahead and purchased the Acer Scanwit 2740S.
>>
>>I spent the first half of this day struggling with SCSI drivers and Acer
>>scanning software.  I could not get the scanner to work.  Finally, I called
>>Acer.
>>
>>It turns out that the SCSI PCI card they include with the scanner only works
>>on PCs!!!!  I can't use this scanner on my Mac G4 without paying almost $300
>>additional for a new Mac compatible SCSI card.
>>
>
>This is just plain silly.  I always thought a PCI card was a PCI 
>card, and a Mac with PCI bus should follow the protocol, one would 
>think. WHich Mac are you using?
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