[sane-devel] Thinking about trying to add support for Mustek 1200 III EP

[Henning Meier-Geinitz]

Hi,

On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 05:24:10PM -0600, Ron Hunter-Duvar wrote:
> I've read all the recommended introductory material (which is how I ended up 
> on this list). I haven't gotten to the sane standard itself yet. That's next 
> on my list. I'm assuming it's version 1 of the standard that I want, not the 
> version 2 that's under development (haven't seen this clearly stated anywhere 
> - "Version 2.0 (Development)" could mean the version to be used for backends 
> and frontends that are under development).

When you click on that link, there is some more text: "The SANE
standard version 2 is currently under development. It shouldn't be
used yet for production software because some important parts are
still missing." 
If this is not clear enough, please propose a better wording. The
author of that text is not a native English speaker :-)

> I tried contacting Mustek to see if they would provide any technical info. 
> Tech Support flatly refused, and Customer Service simply ignored me. They 
> wouldn't so much as tell me if it was a CCD or CIS type scanner.

If it has a white fluorescent lamp, it's most probably CCD. If it
flickers red/green/blue during scanning but there is no white lamp,
it's most probably CIS. Also I think all Mustek "EP" scanners are CCD.

> I saw 
> messages on this list suggesting that some people have established contact 
> with Mustek. Perhaps they can get more info?

For the mustek_usb backend I was in contact with its original author Tom Wang
<tom.wang at mustek.com.tw> some years ago. For the mustek_usb2 backend I
am in contact with Roy Zhou <Roy at mail.mustek-hz.com.cn>. Both
addresses are in the current AUTHORS file of SANE so I guess they are
not secret :-)

As both contacts were working on (at that time) curent USB scanners, I
don't know if they know anything about "historic" parport devices.

> The FCC id suggests a CCD (it has "A4SII" in it), and following the 
> instructions on the mustek_pp web page, I've been able to determine that it 
> uses asic 1505. 

Same chipset as Mustek ScanExpress 12000 P.

> I do have a conflict to resolve with sane-backends-1.0.14-3mdk.i586 
> sane-frontends-1.0.13-1.1010.1mdk.i586 that are already installed by default 
> (the problem is Mandriva's dependency mgmt wants to remove all kinds of other 
> essential packages). I'm working on this.

You can also install the source of sane-backends in /usr/local
(default) and sane-frontends and/or xsane from source in /usr/local.
At least that works for me and you don't need to delete your
distribution's packages.

Or just use sane-backends in /usr/local and do something like
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/libsane.so xsane

> I saw some mention of a sane-mustek_a4s2 backend. Should I try this instead? 
> Or am I mistaken?

IIRC musteka4s2 was the predecessor of mustek_pp.

Bye,
  Henning