Black Widow scanner

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someone

I have a 12-year-old Black Widow 9636 EPP scanner which
connects to my Win 95 and my Win 98SE computers via a
parallel port, with everything working fine using the
supplied driver.

Now I have a Win XP machine the scanner doesn't work when
connected to the parallel port, because Black Widow went
bust before writing any drivers for parallel port XP. I
have found a driver on the Web for this scanner to connect
to an XP machine using a USB port so I wonder if I purchased
a parallel-to-USB cable and attached the scanner to a USB
port that way, if I could then use the downloaded driver. I
have a working printer connected to a USB port so I guess
that would be the port to use.

Furthermore, I have a 50 Gb unformatted partition on my XP
machine, so another alternative would be to install W98SE
there, but I would need help to do that. Do you think this
would be a viable alternative?

Any thoughts out there on the feasibility of these ideas?

someone
 
I have a 12-year-old Black Widow 9636 EPP scanner which
connects to my Win 95 and my Win 98SE computers via a
parallel port, with everything working fine using the
supplied driver.
Click to expand...

No specific solutions for you, I'm afraid, but some ideas/questions to
muddy the waters. :-)
Now I have a Win XP machine the scanner doesn't work when
connected to the parallel port, because Black Widow went
bust before writing any drivers for parallel port XP.
Click to expand...

Is there a Win98 driver available? I'm surprised that driver wouldn't
work. I used to have an old Epson ES800c scanner, and it ran under XP
using the Win95 driver. I eventually upgraded the driver, XP I think,
as Epson added more features to the driver.
I have found a driver on the Web for this scanner to connect
to an XP machine using a USB port so I wonder if I purchased
a parallel-to-USB cable and attached the scanner to a USB
port that way, if I could then use the downloaded driver. I
have a working printer connected to a USB port so I guess
that would be the port to use.
Click to expand...

On the surface, it would seem logical it would work. But if you don't
have the parallel-to-USB cable already, you're out the money and
time/effort if it doesn't work.

Why not just buy a new scanner? Or, maybe hit the pawn shops and see if
you can find one that works and has XP drivers? Make sure you ask the
pawn shop about your options if the scanner won't work.
Furthermore, I have a 50 Gb unformatted partition on my XP
machine, so another alternative would be to install W98SE
there, but I would need help to do that. Do you think this
would be a viable alternative?
Click to expand...

I've never done a multiboot system using Win98. But, if all you are
doing this for is to use the scanner, what about using virtual machine
software? MS has a free one, as well as the open source Virtual Box
which is free. I have no idea how well either program works.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 9.0.1
Thunderbird 9.0.1
LibreOffice 3.4.4
 
someone said:
I have a 12-year-old Black Widow 9636 EPP scanner which
connects to my Win 95 and my Win 98SE computers via a
parallel port, with everything working fine using the
supplied driver.
Click to expand...
Now I have a Win XP machine the scanner doesn't work when
connected to the parallel port, because Black Widow went
bust before writing any drivers for parallel port XP. I
have found a driver on the Web for this scanner to connect
to an XP machine using a USB port so I wonder if I purchased
a parallel-to-USB cable and attached the scanner to a USB
port that way, if I could then use the downloaded driver. I
have a working printer connected to a USB port so I guess
that would be the port to use.
Click to expand...

Scanners usually need bi-directional communication between
computer and scanner. I have yet to find a bi-directional
parallel to usb converter for my devices. Most converters
are one way. I ended up installing a parallel pcie card in
my xp machine.

You could try every driver that Devcom made in the hopes
that one will work with your machine. I have done that
before to get devices working.
Furthermore, I have a 50 Gb unformatted partition on my XP
machine, so another alternative would be to install W98SE
there, but I would need help to do that. Do you think this
would be a viable alternative?
Click to expand...

Yes, you could install 98 on the xp machine and dual boot,
but then you would have to reboot in order to use the scanner.
Lots of people are still using 98. I am going to install it
on a couple of hdds so that I can run old windows and true
dos games. Ask about drivers and dual boot in the 98 group.
Its quite active:
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
 
Installing Win9x is not an option. It is a dead and buried OS.
Click to expand...

Oh, don't be silly. of course it's an option. Windows 9X can still be
installed and will still work. If I had some hardware or software that
wouldn't run under anything else, and I couldn't do without it, I
wouldn't hesitate to install it. Not that that situation has ever come
up for me, but I still have all my old install disks, and even a
zipped-up copy of my last Win98 installation.
 
David said:
From: "someone"


If the scanner in question has a Centronics 36 pin interface you may try the
Belkin F5U0002 USB to parallel interaced.
If, as I suspect, the scanner has a DB25 female then the job may be more
complex in either finding a USB to parallel with a DB25 Male or use the
Belkin F5U0002 with a DB25 male to Centronics 36 pin female converter.
http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=108&sku=02757
Click to expand...

Cost for that adapter is $10. You can get a flatbed USB scanner for
cheap at eBay (e.g., http://tinyurl.com/6rfublu, used, warranty
optional) since a lot of sellers dump them there (used and new). Define
a search looking for the scanner criteria (max price, whatever you put
in the search, select "New" if not interested in used gear) and have it
notify you in the last day of the auction. Any e-mails you get are for
scanners under your max price that end today (so you don't waste lots of
time bidding of stuff where you get overbid for an auction that ends a
week away). If you make a bid on a Canon LiDE 25 USB (for data & power)
flatbed scanner for $5 and no one else makes a bid, it's yours. Just be
careful to check on shipping costs before bidding. In the example
auction, if no one else bids, you'd get the LiDE25 scanner for $15 (a
lot of eBayers sell off their old gear because they upgrade to better
hardware but it's usable to you). Specifying "new" in an eBay search
usually means more money but not always. Rather than try an unknown
driver and have to use an adapter conversion setup (plus not knowing if
the scanner software even works on Windows XP - lots of scanners cease
to function because you can no longer use their software), go with
something that has the USB support along with drivers still available
from the scanner manufacturer.

The OP doesn't know if the "driver" he found will really work with his
old scanner and on Windows XP. The OP will have to add another unknown
in a parallel-to-USB converter. Then there's the unknown if the scanner
software will work on Windows XP (I know of an Astra model, for example,
where there is no separate driver but instead the software communicates
directly but the software won't install on Windows XP). Sometimes it's
easier and better to dump the old hardware and get newer stuff.
Installing Win9x is not an option. It is a dead and buried OS.
Click to expand...

Including installing Win9x inside a virtual machine and run the scanner
software from there? Or multi-booting between different OS'es so you
pick Win9x or WinXP when you boot to decide which OS to load? Since the
OP mentioned having a spare partition, perhaps he was contemplating the
multi-boot approach - and that *is* another option. However, since the
OP never described his new hardware (for his Windows XP computer), we
don't know if that laptop or mobo maker has drivers for Windows XP.
Some computers were designed with Vista support as a minimum and don't
provide drivers for their chipset for earlier versions of Windows.
 
I like the idea of a parallel to USB cable, and have found
this one, which is bi-directional and a 25-pin female, which
would fit my system fine since my current cable is 25-pin
male at both ends. Even if this is a male cable it would go
straight into the scanner.

http://www.microwarehouse.co.uk/catalogue/item/P101491P

The virtual machine for Win 98 sounds like it might be worth
investigating, so I'll check this out as well.

I installed the software (Presto!) that came with the
scanner onto my XP (desktop) machine and it works fine as an
image processor, but falls over when I go to 'acquire' the
file in the scanner (plugged into parallel port), so it's a
TWAIN driver problem I guess.

Thanks to all of you for your interesting thoughts on this
problem, I will go away and consider what you said.

someone
 
As I. I still have installers and keycodes for; Win3.11, Win95,
Win98SE, WinME and NT4. All dead OS'.
Click to expand...

Not dead, just sleeping. They're all options, able to be reanimated
when the need might arise.
 
Cost for that adapter is $10. You can get a flatbed USB scanner for
cheap at eBay (e.g., http://tinyurl.com/6rfublu, used, warranty
optional) since a lot of sellers dump them there (used and new).
Click to expand...


I'm a fan of the Canon LiDE scanners (I have an LiDE60), but if I
remember correctly, there are no Windows 7 drivers for the LiDE25.
 
someone said:
I have a 12-year-old Black Widow 9636 EPP scanner which
connects to my Win 95 and my Win 98SE computers via a
parallel port, with everything working fine using the
supplied driver.

Now I have a Win XP machine the scanner doesn't work when
connected to the parallel port, because Black Widow went
bust before writing any drivers for parallel port XP. I
have found a driver on the Web for this scanner to connect
to an XP machine using a USB port so I wonder if I purchased
a parallel-to-USB cable and attached the scanner to a USB
port that way, if I could then use the downloaded driver. I
have a working printer connected to a USB port so I guess
that would be the port to use.

Furthermore, I have a 50 Gb unformatted partition on my XP
machine, so another alternative would be to install W98SE
there, but I would need help to do that. Do you think this
would be a viable alternative?

Any thoughts out there on the feasibility of these ideas?

someone
Click to expand...

With regard to your idea of installing Win98, I've installed
Win98SE as a joke on one of my Core2 systems (using an 11 year
old 4GB IDE drive :-) ). One of the tricks is, you have to "hide"
some of your system memory, or Win98 will roll over and croak.

The system I did that on, had 2GB of RAM installed. Win98 can't
handle that much RAM. Since I didn't want to pull RAM out
of the machine, every time I'd run Win98, I needed to edit
a file in the install instead.

So the trick is, you install Win98, and when it goes to reboot,
you boot some other OS instead, not Win98. Then, you edit one
of the Win98 files, and you enter a value that "clips" off the RAM.
By doing that, I limited Win98 to seeing 512MB. So it ignores
the other 1.5GB and by ignoring it, doesn't get into trouble.
That way, I boot WinXP it sees 2GB, I boot Win98SE it sees 512MB.

*******
system.ini file in Win98 (edit with Notepad or equivalent)

( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912 )

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=524288 <--- If you allow physical RAM between 512MB and 1GB,
you can benefit from using this. This might not
be needed if the reported RAM is limited to 512MB
using the next two lines.

[386enh]
MaxPhysPage=40000 <--- (hexadecimal, means throw away anything above 1GB.
To limit physical RAM to 512MB, change to 20000.
Using 20000 is a nice safe value, while 40000 is dodgy.
YMMV. On some of my older systems, 40000 wasn't safe
and I had to try lower values until it worked.)
*******

I've never dual booted with Win98. When I do these experiments,
Win98 goes on its own disk. Then, there are no MBR issues. It's
also my understanding (from something I read over on the Win98
group), that there is some issue with moving Win98 around. But
that might be the case if Win98 was doing its own boot management.
If dual booting with WinXP, maybe you'd set it up so the WinXP
partition boots, and Win98 is a boot selection in the WinXP
boot menu.

If you install Win98, it'll probably trash the boot of WinXP, in
which case you'd need to use WinXP Recovery Console and do a fixmbr
or the like. Then, in WinXP, you'd add Win98 as a boot option.
Maybe someone in the Win98 group can give you a precise recipe.

If you install two OSes on the same disk, and you install the
more modern Windows OS second, it picks up the first OS automatically.
If you install an older OS next to an already installed new OS,
it messes things up, and needs repairs if the newer OS is going
to be used to manage it. If you install Win98 on a separate
disk, you can unplug the WinXP disk during the install, so
it doesn't get damaged. And doing it that way, the two disks
are independent, and booting can be managed from the BIOS
(popup boot menu if available).

Summary:

1) Use a separate disk for Win98 if possible. There will be fewer issues
that way, and the disk can be unplugged without affecting anything.
2) Generally, if putting two OSes on the same disk, install the more
modern OS second.
3) If you install the older OS second on a dual boot disk, some repair
work (not a repair install) will be required. From WinXP recovery console,
this would be things like fixmbr.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

4) Win98 has some deal about the position of the partition on the disk.
If you use a partition manager to move Win98 after it has been installed,
do a bit of Googling to see what that breaks. I don't know the details.
That's why a separate disk, makes this so easy...

HTH,
Paul
 
I'm a fan of the Canon LiDE scanners (I have an LiDE60), but if I
remember correctly, there are no Windows 7 drivers for the LiDE25.
Click to expand...

Not true (Canon lists a Windows 7 driver for the 25) but the OP said the
"new" computer is running Windows *XP*. So far, the OP wouldn't care
about a 7 driver. He's using XP.

"Now I have a Win XP machine"
"on my XP machine"

I looked at eBay for a cheap Canon LiDE scanner (I also have the 60) and
saw the 25 model with a $5 starter bid. Sometimes this kind of stuff
never gets a bid so a low bid works - but I use a saved search at eBay
that e-mails when it finds items matching my criteria, one of which is
to look only for auctions ending in 24 hours so I don't waste time
bidding on something that keeps getting jacked up and over my max bid
amount a week later when the auction ends. I then checked at Canon to
make sure they have a driver for Windows XP. I figured they did since
the 60 does but it's possible the 25 didn't. Yep, there is an XP driver
for the 25 listed at Canon's site. They even list a Vista & 7 driver
(the same TWAIN download pkg is used for all of them and the installer
detects what to install based on which OS it is ran).
 
Not true (Canon lists a Windows 7 driver for the 25)
Click to expand...


Yes, thanks, as Dave Lipman also said.

but the OP said the
"new" computer is running Windows *XP*. So far, the OP wouldn't care
about a 7 driver. He's using XP.
Click to expand...


I must have missed that entirely (and besides, this is an XP
newsgroup, so I should have known it). Sorry.
 
I must have missed that entirely (and besides, this is an XP
newsgroup, so I should have known it). Sorry.
Click to expand...

Not as bad as when I go to one OS group but think I'm in some different
OS group and then make a completely inapplicable suggestion. Sometimes
I forget when I've clicked into a different OS newsgroup. DOH!
 
VanguardLH said:
You can get a flatbed USB scanner for cheap at eBay ...
Click to expand...

Oops, forgot to mention Craigslist as another venue to get used
computer gear. Then you can pick it up locally without the overhead
cost of mailing plus you get to see it before paying and you know from
who you got it if you find it is defective.
 
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