[sane-devel] Microtek 4800 scanner

[Dan]

Hi Dale,

I have a Microtek 5950 scanner. You can see the details at http://www.sane-project.org/unsupported/microtek-scanmaker-5950.html.  I thought you may find the way I use this scanner helpful.  I have the scanner connected to a cheap XP computer. My Linux computer is a Samba server. I scan documents directly into the Samba drive (Z:) on XP and they appear in my "/samba" directory on Linux. You can find used XP computers for $100-$150 in my area on www.craigslist.org. Sometimes you can find a new computer for $250 on a closeout sale. I find I need an XP computer anyway for some programs.

I have seen some talk on sane2. It seems to me and keep in mind that I just converted to Linux this year, that we should be pushing for a scanner standard so we do not have to keep writing drivers forever. Most cameras seem to adhere to one of 2 standards. My GCC printer at first didn't seem to be supported but it followed 2 standards (postscript and pcl). All I needed to do was move the .PPD file over from windows to get the printer working. It seems that we should have a standard for scanners and a PPD equivalent that specifies the differences for each scanner.

I wrote to Microtek to get programmer documentation on the 5950 scanner but never got a reply. I thought that Wine my be the answer I was looking for, but it doesn't handle low level, like drivers. Another idea may be for sane2 to support support windows drivers. I'm only guessing that the API for a windows driver (because it is low level) would be much much smaller.

Regards,
Dan
On Sunday 24 December 2006 12:23, Dale Farmer wrote:
> I have installed Mandiva 2007 and everything works except my Microtek
> scanner model 4800.
> 
> The sane-backend is 1.0.18.
> 
> When I run sane-find-scanner, it is detected.
> 
> When I run scanimage -L in both the user and root levels no scanners
> were identified.
> 
> When I run lsusb -vv it the scaner is detected as indicated below.
> 
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05da:20a7 Microtek International, Inc.
> Device Descriptor:
>   bLength                18
>   bDescriptorType         1
>   bcdUSB               1.00
>   bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
>   bDeviceSubClass         3
>   bDeviceProtocol         0
>   bMaxPacketSize0         8
>   idVendor           0x05da Microtek International, Inc.
>   idProduct          0x20a7
>   bcdDevice            0.00
>   iManufacturer           0
>   iProduct                0
>   iSerial                 0
>   bNumConfigurations      1
>   Configuration Descriptor:
>     bLength                 9
>     bDescriptorType         2
>     wTotalLength           32
>     bNumInterfaces          1
>     bConfigurationValue     1
>     iConfiguration          0
>     bmAttributes         0x40
>       (Missing must-be-set bit!)
>       Self Powered
>     MaxPower                0mA
>     Interface Descriptor:
>       bLength                 9
>       bDescriptorType         4
>       bInterfaceNumber        0
>       bAlternateSetting       0
>       bNumEndpoints           2
>       bInterfaceClass         0 (Defined at Interface level)
>       bInterfaceSubClass      0
>       bInterfaceProtocol      0
>       iInterface              0
>       Endpoint Descriptor:
>         bLength                 7
>         bDescriptorType         5
>         bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
>         bmAttributes            2
>           Transfer Type            Bulk
>           Synch Type               None
>           Usage Type               Data
>         wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
>         bInterval               0
>       Endpoint Descriptor:
>         bLength                 7
>         bDescriptorType         5
>         bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
>         bmAttributes            2
>           Transfer Type            Bulk
>           Synch Type               None
>           Usage Type               Data
>         wMaxPacketSize     0x0008  1x 8 bytes
>         bInterval               0
> Device Status:     0x0001
>   Self Powered
> 
> Any help would be appreciated, if not I guess it's back to the evil
> empire :( 
> 
> 
> 
>