[sane-devel] Epson and epkowa

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Hi Ralph,

Ralph Little writes:

> Hi,
>
> On 2020-05-20 2:08 a.m., Olaf Meeuwissen wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I forgot to mention that we don't have documentation on either of the
>> two protocols that wrap the ESC/I and ESC/I-2 protocols for network
>> communication.
>>
>> Olaf Meeuwissen writes:
>>
> The secretiveness of printer/scanner manufacturers regarding their
> protocols absolutely baffles me.

Me too.  Especially since Wireshark makes it insanely easy to capture
the packets over both USB and the network.

> I remember a time when printers came with a manual containing the entire
> protocol to allow you to program it.

The documentation I downloaded (it seems to be no longer available) is
much like that.  There is even a helpful (though very dated) manual
explaining what the various image processing methods are good for with
examples using different parameter settings.

> A rich software infrastructure is one of the things that sells devices.
> Who wouldn't want to sell more devices?

That cuts both ways.  Us keeping all these two-decade old scanners
usable (from old PCs, even!) isn't really going to help sell more
devices ;-P

Hope this helps,
--
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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