LaserSoft Imaging

I'm trying to avoid canning my otherwise wonderful Expression 636 because of my switch to a 1Ghz TiBook. (My previous Lombard had a built-in SCSI port.) Has anyone had any success with Silverfast seeing a 636 across either a PCMCIA SCSI card or some kind of USB/Firewire adapter? And if so, will it work on OSX? (Silverfast 6 claims to support a USB connection for the 636, but I'm not aware of this model ever being shipped with built-in usb connections... so that makes me hopeful an adapter MIGHT be supported.

Thanks,

Robert

I also have a 636 on my old Mac. The 636 has both serial and SCSI ports. I'm connected to the SCSI port. I'd like to run it on a G4 running OSX and perhaps in the Classic mode.

I found this FAQ on SilverFast's website:

Q: My SilverFast Ai 5.5 OSX version does not find my SCSI scanner. Any hints on this?
A: 1) If the OSX system is installed on a Macintosh with on-board SCSI bus ("beige" machines), the OSX system does not detect SCSI scanners correctly. Thus SilverFast won't find any known devices.
Solution:
plug a SCSI host adapter (PCI card) into your Mac and connect the scanner to that card.
2) Make sure turn the scanner on first, then your computer. The scanner won't be found if you turn your scanner on while the computer is already running.
3) Please also make sure you have the latest driver for your SCSI card installed.

Somewhere on the Silverfast website it says the latest version will work with OSX and a USB connection.

So, has anyone connected this scanner using either a USB-to-Serial adapter or a PCI-SCSI adapter (e.g. Adaptec 2930)?

There's this link for an appropriate LaserSoft driver demo:
http://www.silverfast.com/product/Epson ... arget=demo

Let me know if anything works.

Thought I would take a second to update my progress in getting the 636 connected to my TiBook. I was loaned a (now-discontinued) Orange Micro SCSI-to-FireWire Converter, and after installing their last driver package (updated January 2001), I was able to get SilverFast to see the scanner while booted in OS9. It was unable to complete a scan, however. It failed any attempt to do a preview scan, and although it would cycle up and begin a full scan without a preview, it would only capture the top 1/2" or so of the platen. This version of Silverfast is 4.x (shipped w/the 636), so I'll try the demo of the latest version and post the results. (My version of Photoshop is 6.0, so I didn't try a capture in OSX or Classic.)

As an aside, a demo version of the latest release of Hamrick's v**s**n was able to complete a scan in OSX and send the file to Preview, using the same connection described above. In all honesty, I still prefer the Silverfast from an interface standpoint, so I hope I can make the latest release work.[/i]

-Robert

Sadly, I was unable to make even the latest version of Silverfast work across my admittedly kludgy connection to the 636. For the time being, I'll have to jump ship to v**s**n. I imagine that, with a desktop and an OSX-supported SCSI card, it would be a different matter.

-Robert