[sane-devel] Trying to get up to speed with a "Mustek PageExpress A3 USB 1200 PRO" ...

Gjermund Skogstad developer at skogstad.org
Mon Nov 13 02:16:02 UTC 2017


Hi all. 
It's been 12 years since I last posted to a debian mailman list (deb-edu), and 
now it's in hope of getting somewhere useful with this Mustek A3 scanner I've 
got on my table. 

To be honest; I'm properly confused. By searching the net for information on 
this scanner, I get the impression that either all work has stalled or I'm 
missing out on some important bits of information.

About the scanner

On the back if it, it reads "Mustek PageExpress A3 USB 1200 PRO".

'lsusb' says 
"Bus 002 Device 006: ID 055f:040b Mustek Systems, Inc. ScanExpress A3 USB 1200 
PRO".

'sudo lsusb -v -d 055f:040b' starts off
"Bus 002 Device 006: ID 055f:040b Mustek Systems, Inc. ScanExpress A3 USB 1200 
PRO
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass         0 
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x055f Mustek Systems, Inc.
  idProduct          0x040b ScanExpress A3 USB 1200 PRO
  bcdDevice            1.00
  iManufacturer           1 Hewlett-Packard.        
  iProduct                2 USB2.0 Scanner            
  iSerial                 0 
  bNumConfigurations      1
[...]"

'sudo usb-devices' gives
"[...]
T:  Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  6 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=055f ProdID=040b Rev=01.00
S:  Manufacturer=Hewlett-Packard.        
S:  Product=USB2.0 Scanner            
C:  #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=100mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 3 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none)
[...]"

'sudo sane-find-scanner' doesn't find it

Nor does 'sudo scanimage -L' (obviously).

http://www.sane-project.org/cgi-bin/driver.pl?manu=mustek&model=&bus=any
lists it as a "BearPaw 6400 TA Pro" ..?

Various forums around claims this scanner to work with the mustek_usb2 back-
end, but all I can find in SANE-site says mustek_usb2 only supports a single 
scanner (for now).

Although I've used SANE since the dark ages (-98), I'm no SANE-guru by any 
length. I'm a rusty developer, been out of the game for years due to health-
issues, and haven't coded C other than hacking the odd SCSI-driver and 
scripting servers for remote management. So I might just be able to pitch in 
if wanted/needed, but will need help in getting into the SANE-architecture and 
libs coding C. (I have mostly worked with Java, C# and some web-development. 
Hacking some drivers and tracing crashes more than 15 years ago doesn't really 
help that much.)

So I really want to get this thing working, I am willing and possibly even 
able to pitch in, but needs someone to ask seriously stupid questions to get 
going.

Not so stupid questions (for now):
Q1: What's the status on this scanner/these scanners back-end?
Q2: Are there someone working on it now?
Q3: Are there available some architectural documents for SANE?

Hope you've got some time for all this
:)
Gjermund (Norway)



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