Scitex SmarTwo drivers for PC/Linux anyone?

[PixelMover]

Has anyone ever seen or used Windows/Linux drivers for the Scitex SmarTwo Scanner?

I've heard rumours that there is a linux version, but haven't been able to trace it...
Just curious, i still have the original mac and SGI drivers.

[G. Couch]

How old is that scanner? I can't even find many references for it, let alone drivers. My advice would be to email Scitex or Creo Products and see what kind of support they can give.

[d_kendal]

I searched around quite a bit and couldn't come up with anything for windows, Mac or Linux. the only Scitex drivers that showed up on the search engines were for printers. you can contact Scitex here

- David

P.S. nice to see another Linux user on the site!

[G. Couch]

Well, if David (resident Linux expert ) can't find a Linux driver, I have my doubts that one exists!

[d_kendal]

if you really need a driver and can't find one, you can look into this site: http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/drivers.html
they can probably make a Linux driver for your device, but I don't know how much it would cost you.

- David

[PixelMover]

Thanks for all the replies!

Of course I've already contacted Scitex. They are highly uncooperative (well, from my point of view anyway ;-) ).
I asked them to let me know if they could confirm these drivers existed, but they refused to answer ANY question until I set up a 'customer account' and payd $175 in 'administration fees'...So I'd have to pay before I would be allowed to ask anything...

The scanner is about 10 yrs old, but the gob-smacking quality of the scans still makes it very usable even now. It still beats any of the brand new 4000pi 35mm and medium-format scanners. Even some drum-scanners don't get on par.
The problem is that the mac drivers only work up to the very first model G3 (the beige colored desktop models). Considering the size of the scan and the time it takes on one of these old Macs, I'm trying to find drivers so I can run it on a faster platform, that's all. No 'upgraded' mac drivers are available.

[G. Couch]

That's typical...they want you to pay just to ask a simple question about a ten year old scanner/driver. I guess they sell enough Eversmart scanners to not care much about their old stuff.

If you went the route of getting someone to write a new driver, my guess is that it would be easier to update the mac driver rather than write a brand new one for a different OS. You might try posting on a few Mac boards and see if anyone else out there might be interested...of course you would still probably need some tech support from Scitex!

[Doug Nelson]

This will be of minimal help, but I was able to use it once. Scanner manufacturers frequently make models for sale by different companies, so you can sometimes find software from one company that will work on hardware from another. In my case I had an HP scanner with really primitive scanning software, but found out that it was mechanically the same scanner as one offered by Microtek, which had much nicer software support.

There's no hard and fast rule about who does what for whom, you pretty much have to sniff around on your own. Sometimes physical resemblance of the hardware can help give a clue.

I've read some of the new Heidelberg scanners are actually made by Microtek, for example.

You might also check with some of the 3rd-party software suppliers for hints, such as Vuescan or Silverfast. I suspect Ed Hamrick over at Vuescan would know this off the top of his head