Grex Hardware Conference

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Grex Hardware Item 128: scsi interface -vs- parallel interface. simpler, yes; speed? dunno, yet.
Entered by tsty on Tue Mar 11 10:30:30 UTC 1997:

ok, so this new scanner *says* it comes with a scsi card ... and
then i open the box and there is no scsi card. 
  
however, there is this over-bulky cable tha says, parallel-port
connection with printer pass-through.
  
hmmmmmmm, call tech support (nice, 800# and all).
  
GuyOnTheOtherEnd (gotoe) says, oh, it's simpler
  
i say, well, tell ya what, send me the scsi card and i'll send
back teh slower interface.
  
and i'll report all the details in this public confrence, so if
you wnat to telnet to   cyberspace.org  and run  newuser, yuo 
can read all about it ...*and* ... make any replies you wnat to.
  
sure, he says.
  
waiting for scsi card now.
  
thoughts?

15 responses total.

#1 of 15 by n8nxf on Tue Mar 11 14:48:22 1997:

But is the SCSI card compatable with the scanner?  Or did the over-bulky
cable convert between printer-talk and SCSI?

#2 of 15 by tsty on Wed Mar 12 19:51:21 1997:

teh scsi card  on-the-way is the one sepcified in the scanner
manual. adaptec someting or other (don't have th book handy, didn't
memorize the model number  - will do that next time)
  
there supposedly is , inside the bullky cnnector, a parallel<-->scsi
chip set.  and the over-bulky connector ahs a lpt passthrough.
  
anyone have any experience with these sorts of things?
....good/bad/indifferent?

#3 of 15 by scg on Wed Mar 12 23:54:43 1997:

The place I used to work had a Paralell port SCSI adapter, made by Adaptec
(something Adaptec got when they bought Trantor).  It worked pretty well. 
It was a bit slow, but it let us use SCSI devices on computers that didn't
have SCSI cards.

#4 of 15 by tsty on Thu Mar 13 08:38:19 1997:

the adaptec scsi card, per the manual, is a 1520.
  
no answer from the scanport ppl, yet.

#5 of 15 by tsty on Mon Mar 31 17:52:47 1997:

however. still no scsi card (phone call due now).
  
i have hooked up the scanner to lpt1, played 'innocent victim' with
all the software (win 3.11). 
  
everything loaded fine except an  .exe file (which i couldn't find
in any dir /a listings) however, when called for in  autoexec.bat .....
*worked* (i dunno).  
  
ok, so the scanner was accessible, does it work?  ahhh-yup, works
fine, VeryGoodScan with all default settings (and a gazillion avaialble
settings to tweak with too) but also VerrrrrrrrrrySloooooooooow through
the parallel port. cheap,easy,simple,quality&slow. hmmmmmm.

#6 of 15 by tsty on Mon Mar 31 17:57:20 1997:

oh, the b0x in question is an american megatrends 486dx33 w/16Meg ram
ami bios, compressed (drvspace) c:\.
  
(btw, anyone know how to pop up 33->40 mhz on that momboard?)

#7 of 15 by n8nxf on Mon Mar 31 19:51:15 1997:

Find the jumper/s that determine the clock speed and slid it/them to
the 40 MHz spot/s.
 
May also want to try a 486/DX-2 chippy and poke along a 66 mHz ;-)

#8 of 15 by tsty on Fri Apr 11 06:16:43 1997:

those jumpers are not labled... that is the problem. i guess my
question was poorly constructed .....
  
ummmmm, anyone know how to identify, or where on the motherboard
to find the jumpers for popping a 33 up to a 40?  
  
since the suggestion was raised .... anyone wannna get rid of
a 486/dx-2 chippy so i could poke along at a mere 66? <g>

#9 of 15 by arthurp on Tue Apr 15 04:28:22 1997:

Does the board even support 40?  Many early ones didn't.  Matching a manual
to that board is about the only way.  Unless there is silk screened info, but
you already said there wasn't.

#10 of 15 by tsty on Tue Apr 15 08:01:35 1997:

i have been in telephone contact with  scanpac. they decided to send
the scsi card. they also have beeninvited to  telnet to here and
chat about things. i think the chief techie was, ummmm, somewhat
startled at the offer, but, hey, this is grex.
  
as for the speed switch .... *some*one might have either a close
approximatin of a manual, the real manual, or experience with
those boards ...<g>

#11 of 15 by arthurp on Sun Apr 20 18:58:10 1997:

Maybe AMI has a faxback service that you could use for the MB?

#12 of 15 by tsty on Sun Apr 27 08:28:50 1997:

well, the scsi card, cable and software arrived .... 
  
now on to the tests ...

#13 of 15 by arthurp on Sat May 10 22:13:05 1997:

Please, do tell...

#14 of 15 by tsty on Mon May 26 08:25:23 1997:

gotta get teh original parallel interface working reliably first ...
actually, i think it's mostly my fault that it's not, though.
  
b0x sees scanner well enough to do previews ...but for  the scan,
it can't find the scanner (weird!).

#15 of 15 by tsty on Tue Jun 3 17:22:59 1997:

ok, got the lpt1 port and scanner working again. did a bunch of
scans for a <really neat> project. sent a 46.96 meg file to an 11x17
color cannon printer (had to wrestle with kinkos a bit to do it) and
the results were spectacular (wel.... excellent, anyway).
  
now to find a large reference photograph and run some timing tests
on that. then switch to the scsi card and do it all again.

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