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Looking for Image Scanning software DOS (8086) or Windows 3.0 (8086, Real mode)

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First post, by radiance32

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HI all,
I hope this is the right forum for my questions:

I've managed to attach a Microtek Scanmaker SCSI-2 Flatbed Scanner from the early 90's to a SCSI-2 bus on a PC with a 8086 CPU.
I have MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0 running in real mode on the machine.
I have loaded the driver/ASPI manager for my SCSI-2 interface, and the ASPI manager correctly finds the scanner on it's SCSI ID 4 and displays the name of the scanner etc...,
so the hardware is properly connected and detected.

However, I have looked everywhere and cannot find any useable software to actually scan something, or, control the scanner in any way.
Popular scanning software of the age like Visioneer Paperport, OmniPage and several OCR packages that support scanners simply won't run in real mode on Windows 3.0,
I found copies of these and tried it on Windows 3.0 in Real Mode, and confirmed they won't run,
and require a 286 CPU or 386 CPU with windows running in standard or enhanced mode...

* First question: Does anyone know of any software that I could try that runs on MS-DOS (without a protected mode runtime, eg it runs on a 8086+ CPU),
or, on Windows 3.0 in Real Mode, and supports SCSI scanners either directly ontop of the ASPI manager, or via a 3rd party ASPI driver for the scanner ontop of the ASPI manager ?

* Second question: The drivers for the scanner (I managed to find an ISO image of the CD-ROM that originally came with the scanner) only has ASPI drivers for windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51.
But, since many SCSI scanners operate the same (especially other models by the same manufacturer, eg Microtek, which made quite a lot of different scanner models back then and was quit popular),
maybe someone knows of a compatible ASPI driver that supports generic SCSI scanners or generic Microtek SCSI scanners, similar to how a generic SCSI CD-ROM API driver works with a fair amount of different SCSI CD-ROM drives,
It might not supply all the specific options provided by the scanner model i'm using (like setting the resolution higher, page sizes, colour depth, slide scanning etc,
but I'm happy to just have it scan anything at any resolution, does'nt matter if it's a low resolution. The point is to get it working, or at least do "something" for a SCSI demo video i'm making on my channel, not for actual practical use...
Maybe there is a 3rd party package of ASPI drivers that support generic Microtek SCSI scanners in SCSI software like CorelSCSI or Adapter EZ-SCSI (I haven't managed to find a copy of these two applications online anywhere though)...

Your help is very much appreciated! 😀
Yours,
Radiance

Last edited by radiance32 on 2021-12-08, 06:59. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 1 of 26, by Caluser2000

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What type of scanner are you referring to? Flatbed or hand scanner?

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 2 of 26, by radiance32

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Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-12-08, 06:27:

What type of scanner are you referring to? Flatbed or hand scanner?

It's a SCSI-2 flatbed scanner. A Microtek Scanmaker
I'll add it to my thread post too...

Cheers,
Radiance

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Reply 3 of 26, by vetz

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What is the modelnumber for this scanner?

If this scanner came out in the 90's it will most likely not include drivers for realmode and it's not made for being run on a 8086.

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Reply 4 of 26, by Caluser2000

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vetz wrote on 2021-12-08, 12:27:

What is the modelnumber for this scanner?

If this scanner came out in the 90's it will most likely not include drivers for realmode and it's not made for being run on a 8086.

Plus one.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 5 of 26, by rmay635703

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The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card.
(I have one)

Unless your scanner is backwards compatible with older mustek tools and drivers you are likely out of luck.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VC8EAAAAMBA … AxwQ6AF6BAgOEAI

https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?do … quest_locale=en

Reply 6 of 26, by Caluser2000

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rmay635703 wrote on 2021-12-08, 18:22:
The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card. (I have one) […]
Show full quote

The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card.
(I have one)

Unless your scanner is backwards compatible with older mustek tools and drivers you are likely out of luck.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VC8EAAAAMBA … AxwQ6AF6BAgOEAI

https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?do … quest_locale=en

I also had one. It came with DR Halo Dos software.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 7 of 26, by BitWrangler

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*shudder* I used one on a 386 and it was dog slow, now we gotta take that poor mutt out the back and make it lame? .... then the OCR was so bad, and the formatting so screwed, I questioned the sanity of taking half hour a page for something that probably took 10 mins to retype.... this was on a machine that could fit a whole 2bit bitmap of the page in RAM too.

Well I wish you luck, but I wouldn't want to scan on a PC/XT class DOS machine unless that was the only software that existed to try that hardware out.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 8 of 26, by rmay635703

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-08, 19:11:

*shudder* I used one on a 386 and it was dog slow, now we gotta take that poor mutt out the back and make it lame? .... then the OCR was so bad

On a lighter topic I own a Sony flatbed video scanner for vintage computer photography

Takes seconds to preview select and scan the area you want but then again it was used with a RGBS 512x480x16bit flash buffer on the 12.5mhz 68010 based workstation.

If your not scanning text a video scanner with capture card can speed things up.

Reply 9 of 26, by OMORES

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Look for Scan Edit II... I have the disks but no 5.25 floppy drive.

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Reply 10 of 26, by radiance32

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rmay635703 wrote on 2021-12-08, 18:22:
The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card. (I have one) […]
Show full quote

The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card.
(I have one)

Unless your scanner is backwards compatible with older mustek tools and drivers you are likely out of luck.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VC8EAAAAMBA … AxwQ6AF6BAgOEAI

https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?do … quest_locale=en

That's what I was thinking... I was hoping there might be a generic SCSI scanner driver for microtek scanners somewhere in a 3rd party SCSI/ASPI manager package,
if anyone knows of one, please let me know...

Thanks for your time 😀
Radiance

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Reply 11 of 26, by radiance32

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rmay635703 wrote on 2021-12-08, 18:22:
The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card. (I have one) […]
Show full quote

The old B&W hand held scanners would run on a Pc/XT with a special interface card.
(I have one)

Unless your scanner is backwards compatible with older mustek tools and drivers you are likely out of luck.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VC8EAAAAMBA … AxwQ6AF6BAgOEAI

https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?do … quest_locale=en

That brings back so much memories 😀
I also had a hand scanner back then 😀 And if i remember correctly, I also used Dr Halo with it.
It could do monochrome and also 256 greyscale colours.
I remember you had to carefully roll it over your picture you want to scan, otherwise you'd get creases and other errors in your scanned image.
If i remember correctly there was also a stitching functionality in the software that allowed you to do 2 handscans of a full A4 page, then it would stitch the 2 halves of your page together,
but it did'nt always work correctly...

Such nostalgia from back when i was like 7-8 years old 😀

Radiance

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Reply 12 of 26, by radiance32

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vetz wrote on 2021-12-08, 12:27:

What is the modelnumber for this scanner?

If this scanner came out in the 90's it will most likely not include drivers for realmode and it's not made for being run on a 8086.

It came out in 1995, (can't remember the actual model number, i'm not at home right now) and indeed, it does'nt include realmode ASPI drivers with the scanner,
that's the reason i made this post, hoping there might be a generic microtek scanner driver in some 3rd party SCSI manager software like CorelSCSI or EZ-SCSI or something else...

Radiance

Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ

Reply 13 of 26, by radiance32

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OMORES wrote on 2021-12-08, 20:02:

Look for Scan Edit II... I have the disks but no 5.25 floppy drive.

Can't find anything about "scan edit II" via google 🙁
But, is this the software that came with your handscanner ?
It will likely only support that scanner, or similar ones, not a 1995 flatbed SCSI scanner... but I may be wrong...

Terrence

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Reply 14 of 26, by radiance32

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OMORES wrote on 2021-12-08, 20:02:

Look for Scan Edit II... I have the disks but no 5.25 floppy drive.

Can you look in the scan edit II manual you have and see if you can find any information in it about what scanners are supported ?

THanks for your time 😀
Radiance

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Reply 15 of 26, by OMORES

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Can you look in the scan edit II manual you have and see if you can find any information in it about what scanners are supported ?

No mention, it's branded "Genius Scan Edit II"... so it sticks with products from Kye Systems...

Meanwhile, I found a copy of Scan Edit II online.

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Reply 16 of 26, by lolo799

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radiance32 wrote on 2021-12-08, 20:12:
It came out in 1995, (can't remember the actual model number, i'm not at home right now) and indeed, it does'nt include realmode […]
Show full quote
vetz wrote on 2021-12-08, 12:27:

What is the modelnumber for this scanner?

If this scanner came out in the 90's it will most likely not include drivers for realmode and it's not made for being run on a 8086.

It came out in 1995, (can't remember the actual model number, i'm not at home right now) and indeed, it does'nt include realmode ASPI drivers with the scanner,
that's the reason i made this post, hoping there might be a generic microtek scanner driver in some 3rd party SCSI manager software like CorelSCSI or EZ-SCSI or something else...

Radiance

Does it support Twain?

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Reply 17 of 26, by radiance32

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OMORES wrote on 2021-12-08, 20:27:

Can you look in the scan edit II manual you have and see if you can find any information in it about what scanners are supported ?

No mention, it's branded "Genius Scan Edit II"... so it sticks with products from Kye Systems...

Meanwhile, I found a copy of Scan Edit II online.

Thanks 😀 I'll check it out when i'm home tonight 😀
But, i've a feeling it will only support genius handscanners...
Let's see...

Radiance

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Reply 18 of 26, by radiance32

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lolo799 wrote on 2021-12-08, 21:20:
radiance32 wrote on 2021-12-08, 20:12:
It came out in 1995, (can't remember the actual model number, i'm not at home right now) and indeed, it does'nt include realmode […]
Show full quote
vetz wrote on 2021-12-08, 12:27:

What is the modelnumber for this scanner?

If this scanner came out in the 90's it will most likely not include drivers for realmode and it's not made for being run on a 8086.

It came out in 1995, (can't remember the actual model number, i'm not at home right now) and indeed, it does'nt include realmode ASPI drivers with the scanner,
that's the reason i made this post, hoping there might be a generic microtek scanner driver in some 3rd party SCSI manager software like CorelSCSI or EZ-SCSI or something else...

Radiance

Does it support Twain?

I assume it has TWAIN drivers for windows 95 etc as it says on the box of the scanner it supports windows 95, and to the best of my recollection you needed a TWAIN driver to use a scanner the normal way under windows 95.
There was no CD-ROM or disk in the box of the scanner (it's an old scanner I found in my garage full of vintage computer stuff)
Aren't TWAIN drivers a windows 95 and up thing ? Or did they also exist for MS-DOS ?
The only experience I have with scanners back then was the handscanner under MS-DOS with Dr Halo, and using a flatbed scanner under NT4.0 which required a TWAIN driver, although it's been so many years ago I can't rightly remember...

Radiance

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