Color scanners for OS/2 Warp

by Ira N. Saxe

With color scanners becoming more economical, I began to wonder if color scanning was practical under OS/2. Eventually, it became a challenge: Could I make a color scanner work on my IBM Aptiva (Model SE7, Type 2139)? And, if I could do so, could I share my success, with other OS/2 users?

Happily, the answers were Yes. Here's what I learned.

Desired features

My first step was to create a list of what mattered: I needed a scanner and OS/2 software to drive it. The combination needed to include support for common graphic formats, such as Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), and Joint Photograph Expert Group (JPEG) format. I also wanted my scanner/software combination, when faced with an unknown file type, to try to determine the correct image format based on the file contents.

Ideally, the software support would include optical-character recognition (OCR), letting me convert a printed page into computer text.

The color scanner should be from a reputable company, with adequate capability for home or small business use, and priced under $300. Optional features should include an automatic document feeder and transparency unit, which would enable me to scan 35mm. to 4 by 5 inch negatives or transparencies.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection is preferred over the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI); based on my research, it's more capable and costs less than a SCSI adapter.

A prerequisite for success is an OS/2 driver for the connection type whether SCSI or USB.

Software options

I found only two OS/2 image processing products available for purchase: PMView/CFM TWAIN bundle and Impos/2. Both programs give excellent scanning control, and have viewing and editing control for bit mapped color and grays.

Neither program includes OCR, but both applications provide the images for an OCR converter, and I will try to find such an OS/2 program.

Impos/2 has better image editing capabilities, though at a higher price. Only Impos/2 supports two SCSI attached scanners, if they're needed.

For scanning, viewing and converting both programs seem excellent, with CFM TWAIN/PMView at a lower price. Both programs provide many variable image settings, such as rotation, mirroring, brightness and contrast, hue and saturation, red-green-blue color balance, inversion (i.e. make a negative), and color conversion. In addition, Impos/2 includes editing tools, such as brush, line tool, airbrush, flood fill, clone, color swapper, eraser, and sponge.

I'm happy to have them both and will probably use both applications to learn more of their features.

For example, one nice CFM TWAIN feature shows you the scanned file size that will result from the selected size and dpi resolution. You won't create a 25MB file without warning. On the other hand, PMView creates thumbnail icons of the image files in a directory, which can be selected via a mouse. I like both of these applications.

The search

At http://www.pc.ibm.com, I found a listing of hardware interfaces for my Aptiva 2139, confirming that it does USB and does not have a SCSI controller. At the same site, a document for the Netfinity 5000 server provided a good description of a USB port and its four electrical connections .

Indelible Blue Inc listed one OS/2 compatible scanner, the Hewlett Packard 6250Cxi, a color flatbed scanner for $444. They listed Impos/2 as the only OS/2 supporting program, for $169.

The IBM OS/2 Device Driver Pak On-Line service included an OS/2 scanning solution, the software PMView/CFM TWAIN Bundle, from BMT Micro . Their site listed this solution, for $79.99, as needing a SCSI interface. It listed the supported scanners, none of which are presently shipped by the leading scanner manufacturers.

The IBM OS/2 Device Driver Pak On-Line identified CFM Computer of Germany as the source of CFM TWAIN, the SCSI driver for the above scanning solution. In answer to my query, CFM said that they have no intention of developing a USB TWAIN driver. Since I found no other OS/2 scanner solution, I decided to accept their SCSI solution, and purchased the PMView/CFM TWAIN Bundle, at $79.99, from BMT Micro.

PMView 1.05 is the latest update (at this writing), of the application I've used for viewing images. Available from PMView, it supports about 30 image formats, many of which are beyond my present knowledge. This version supports an interface with the CFM TWAIN software, which controls the scanning. Presumably version 2.0, expected shortly, is equally capable--if not more so.

There are many color scanners listed in the various catalogues. The problem is to find one with OS/2 support. I finally concentrated on the ones recommended in PC World in October and November 1999, and bought their first choice for a SCSI connection from Epson, at $299.95, the Perfection 636. It includes an Adaptec AVA-2902E/I PCI-to-SCSI adapter card, which seemed to solve my concern for the lack of this interface.

The OS/2 SCSI driver

I installed the Adaptec card in my Aptiva SE7. The IBM OS/2 Device Driver Pak On-Line led me to Adaptec drivers. I downloaded and tried several of their drivers. I ended up using their AIC7870.ADD driver in C:\OS2\BOOT and added BASEDEV=AIC7870.ADD /V to the CONFIG.SYS.

Installing the PMView/CFM Twain bundle was accomplished without problems. However, the CFM TWAIN and PMView programs returned "Scanner not ready! Check your scanner" at any attempt to acquire an image from the Epson scanner.

This is the "I took the wrong fork and it cost me" paragraph that you may want to skip. Thinking this was a problem related to the adapter driver or SCSI card problem, I asked Adaptec support for help. They responded that card AVA-2902E/I is special for and supported only by Epson. Next, they suggested using their AVA-2910C at $109.99. But, this card had just been discontinued. Several mail order companies had ten-packs of the card (too costly for me). The next alternative was their AHA-2940 Ultra card, which I bought from PC Connection for $219.95. It is supported by the same driver, the AIC7870.ADD. I needed a new SCSI cable, however, because of connector differences, but such things seem to happen. Unfortunately, the same problem remained for the CFM TWAIN and PMView programs. (I should add that Adaptec support was helpful and answered each inquiry.)

At this point, failure was staring in my face. I bought the Impos/2 program as a possible salvation.

Yeah! It works!

After program installation, you use Impos/2's main menu to install or change the supplied device drivers. The Installation manual is adequate, but you need to enter the directory where you put the program. Also, you need to enter the new driver directory of the CD-ROM (e.g., H:\CDINST\US). Then, you choose the driver and the scanner's SCSI ID. Finally, you enter your chosen name for each scanner. I chose the GT-9500 as my Epson scanner, which works.

Impos/2 includes scanner drivers for IBM, Epson, HP, Mustek, Microtek, Ricoh and OBIS.

Impos/2 drove the Epson scanner without any problem. This caused me to suspect a CFM TWAIN problem, rather than the SCSI card and its drivers. So, I asked CFM for help. I followed their instructions to add the following to scanner.ini:

    [Perfection636]
    Driver=EPSON
    AltVendor=Epson
    AltDevice=Perfection 636

Later, I reinstalled the SCSI card that came with the Epson scanner--and it works fine. Thus, I wasted almost $300 for an unneeded adapter card and cable. Live and learn.

Scanning images

To scan from PMView, you choose Acquire, which starts and scans via CFM TWAIN. The CFM TWAIN scanner page menu has plenty of choices. You can scan just an Overview, Prescan, Finescan and Finescan to Clipboard. Settingscontrol whether the image is captured in grayscales, Lineart (also used for OCR), 256 Colors or True Color (RGB). Analog resolution ranges from 30 to 2000 dpi. There are twenty size settings, several input/output choices, filtering, and noise reduction. Plus, you can scan in negative or mirrored images, and adjust brightness and contrast at scan time.

Impos/2 does quite a bit beyond scanning. You can capture the PC screen, or edit images with 24 tools--from creating a rectangle to a tool that measures the distance and angle between two points.

Impos/2's scanning options include Preview and Scan. Settings range from grayscales to 24-bit color. You can control the horizontal and vertical resolution, as well as sharpness, brightness and contrast. Impos/2 shows the file size that will result from the current size and dpi resolution, and it also shows the picture size in horizontal and vertical pixels. These values change when you adjust the scan window, a rectangle that you adjust with a mouse to scan only a portion of a page.

The Impos/2 User's Guide is excellent. It clearly describes your options and actions and, importantly for me, image processing basics. No user's guide came with PMView. But its menus are very good.

Final words

I believe the Epson scanner with either the Impos/2 or CFM TWAIN PMView program is a good choice. I am now productively using both of them to scan pictures of relatives and ancestors to include with my genealogical file.

Products discussed

Epson Perfection 636 color scanner. From Epson at $299.95 or from any mail order company, described in Epson

Adaptec AVA-2902E/I PCI SCSI Host Adapter, which came with the color scanner and is described at Adaptec

Adaptec AHA-2940 Ultra PCI SCSI Host Adapter from PC Connection at $219.95 or from Adaptec, which also works but was not needed.

AIC7870.ADD driver for either of the Adaptec cards, which is a free download from Adaptec.

Impos/2 graphics driver, editing and viewing tool. From Indelible Blue at $169.00.

PMView/CFM TWAIN graphics driver, editing and viewing tool. From BMT Micro at $79.99.

Ira Saxe has a EE from VMI, class of 1939. He was a WW2 officer in Signal Corps. and an IBM engineer from 1955 to 1990, with assignments starting in logical circuit design for Sage (vacuum tubes) air defense system and ending with 30 years in space related system engineering/management from Mercury to Space Shuttle. Presently, he programs in Clipper for a network based DOS system for his son's metal fabrication company. He's used OS/2 since it was first available to IBM employees.