Help me save my old scanner

[mpaza]

Does anyone know of a adapter that can be used to hook up a large format (expensive) Epson scanner that I used to my old Mac through a serial (25 pin?) port before it went dead today. I mainly use a G4 for most of my work but had the old Mac as a dedicated scanning station until today. The G4 only has firwire and USB connections so I'm stumpted. I would rather avoid taking it down to the Mac store for a serial card to be installed if I can find an adapter that would do the same basic communication.

Thanks,
Mike :sad:

[kc0arf]

Hello,

I would be VERY surprised if you had a serial based scanner. More than likely, it is a SCSI scanner that is on your 25 pin port. Unless you have a special expansion card in your computer, Mac serial ports were always round, or the old DB-9 connector on the very first Macs out there.

Most likely, you will need a SCSI card for your G4, and move the software over to that computer. If it is all OS 9 based though, that could put a crunch on your workflow on an OS X G4. Then again, your G4 could also be in OS 9, and working fine for you too.

Quick Ideas:

1) Consider purchasing a used Mac G3 that still has the SCSI board inside. Setup the scanning station on that computer, and keep your G4 and other computers moving along as normal.

2) Purchase a SCSI card for your G4

2a) If your G4 is OS X, and your scanning software is OS 9 based, you may have some challenges. On my G3 laptop, running OS X, I need to boot into OS 9 to scan -- classic mode does not work for me to do this function. Thankfully, I scan rarely.

2b) If your G4 is OS 9, you should be able to get a card for it, and have it work under OS 9, and setup your scanning software with it.

I think the most viable solution is finding an older Mac (not too old!) to do the scaning work.

You COULD get a SCSI to USB adapter or a SCSI to Firewire adapter (I think they make them!) but getting the hardware to work and sync properly could be a techie nightmare. Best to get a real SCSI slot into your computer.

Christian

P.S. What vintage is the Mac that died? What kind of death did it suffer?

[alc6379]

I think the most viable solution is finding an older Mac (not too old!) to do the scaning work.

How old is not too old? I have a Power Mac 8600, 400MB RAM with a 250mhz processor and a 10BT ethernet connection. I do scanning with it, and then I bump it over to my other machines to do the real work. That machine was a powerhouse in its day, and it can still hold its own for most tasks.

[kc0arf]

Hello Alex,

In MY book, too old would be the 7100 family and earlier, such as the Quadra (68040), and the Centris line, and the earlier Mac II's and so forth. Why? Because these units have some challenging part constraints:

* No IDE bus inside. Means if the hard drive dies, you need to find small SCSI-1 drives
* No built-in ethernet. Yes, you had the AAUI, but it was another piece of hardware.
* Generally limited to 800 x 600 or smaller resolution on screen. Yes could have "powerhouse" of a video card installed, but not always.
* Not VGA capable... so limited in monitor selection
* System software came mostly on floppy disk (System 7, System 6). Floppies are a problem.
* No CPU expansion options, except for some add-on cards such as the Daystar products.
* 72 pinn SIMMS, or even the 32 pin ones. Not as bad as chips... but do you have any around?

The oldest computers in our family still around are the PowerBook 5200's and the PowerMac 7100 that my cousin uses. We donanted away the Mac LC's that we started with, along with the IIe. I did keep an Apple IIc as it was small, worthy, and adorable. I turn it on once in a while.

We did keep the Imagewriter I's that we had. I like it a lot more than the ImageWriter II. The I was a blocky dinosaur that really defined what an Impact printer was all about.

Bear in mind, that you need an older mac to keep the serial printers around... such as the Personal Laserwriter LS, or the Imagewriters, or the Stylewriters. You can have that older computer be a print server. Just do not be in a hurry to retrieve your documents.

Christian

[mpaza]

How old is not too old? I have a Power Mac 8600, 400MB RAM with a 250mhz processor and a 10BT ethernet connection. I do scanning with it, and then I bump it over to my other machines to do the real work. That machine was a powerhouse in its day, and it can still hold its own for most tasks.

It's a PowerPC 8500 which in its day was the top O' the line for Macintosh. It served me well through quite a few feature films and until about a week ago it WAS my scanner station. I may look into adding a SCSI card to one of my G4s but didn't want to drop it off at the Apple store and wait a week until it gets done. Tried a USB adapter cable but it wasn't recognized on the desktop.

I'm going to contact an old friend and see if he can canabalize some of his old Mac graveyard and resurrect this machine.

[mpaza]

Hello,

I would be VERY surprised if you had a serial based scanner. More than likely, it is a SCSI scanner that is on your 25 pin port. Unless you have a special expansion card in your computer, Mac serial ports were always round, or the old DB-9 connector on the very first Macs out there.

Most likely, you will need a SCSI card for your G4, and move the software over to that computer. If it is all OS 9 based though, that could put a crunch on your workflow on an OS X G4. Then again, your G4 could also be in OS 9, and working fine for you too.

Quick Ideas:

1) Consider purchasing a used Mac G3 that still has the SCSI board inside. Setup the scanning station on that computer, and keep your G4 and other computers moving along as normal.

2) Purchase a SCSI card for your G4

2a) If your G4 is OS X, and your scanning software is OS 9 based, you may have some challenges. On my G3 laptop, running OS X, I need to boot into OS 9 to scan -- classic mode does not work for me to do this function. Thankfully, I scan rarely.

2b) If your G4 is OS 9, you should be able to get a card for it, and have it work under OS 9, and setup your scanning software with it.

I think the most viable solution is finding an older Mac (not too old!) to do the scaning work.

You COULD get a SCSI to USB adapter or a SCSI to Firewire adapter (I think they make them!) but getting the hardware to work and sync properly could be a techie nightmare. Best to get a real SCSI slot into your computer.

Christian

P.S. What vintage is the Mac that died? What kind of death did it suffer?

Thanks Christian,

You've offerred some great ideas. I did try the adapter cable into USB but it didn't work. I am going to try to get the old (8500) machine fixed as it was using OS 9. The Epson scanner is a beaut and I want to keep it. Another solution is to just get a cheap PC running Windows and then network it over to the G4. I haven't done that before but assume it isn't too difficult. :)

[alc6379]

It's a PowerPC 8500 which in its day was the top O' the line for Macintosh. It served me well through quite a few feature films and until about a week ago it WAS my scanner station. I may look into adding a SCSI card to one of my G4s but didn't want to drop it off at the Apple store and wait a week until it gets done. Tried a USB adapter cable but it wasn't recognized on the desktop.

I'm going to contact an old friend and see if he can canabalize some of his old Mac graveyard and resurrect this machine.

I'll be honest with you-- I like the 8500, but I can't stand it, all in the same breath. It's upgradeable, and it runs like a champ. But, to upgrade the RAM, you have to take the whole flipping thing apart!

Right now, I've got an 8500 that I paid $80 for on eBay. You could probably find one for cheaper, even. I took the liberty of upgrading mine to a G3 300mhz, 400MB of RAM, and two 8GB hard drives in mine. It runs superbly-- with XPostFacto, I can even shoe-horn OS X onto that baby!

MY personal opinion, Christian ;) , is that the 85/95/86/9600 series of system is the sweet-spot as far as an older machine is concerned for your task. I personally wouldn't go for anything earlier than a 603 PPC chip in this situation. Heck, you could even slap OS 8.6 on a Beige G3 and be sitting REAL pretty...

[josh385]

Does anyone know of a adapter that can be used to hook up a large format (expensive) Epson scanner that I used to my old Mac through a serial (25 pin?) port before it went dead today. I mainly use a G4 for most of my work but had the old Mac as a dedicated scanning station until today. The G4 only has firwire and USB connections so I'm stumpted. I would rather avoid taking it down to the Mac store for a serial card to be installed if I can find an adapter that would do the same basic communication.

Thanks,
Mike :sad:

I have a serial card that works with macs
if u want it
come down to 40 dyson street kensington Wa
Sencerly,kids385 it is for a cheap price if ur lucky it may be 4 free!!!!