Printing and Scanning on the OS/2 Platform by Tony Butka

This monthly column on scanning, printing and graphics is the result of heavy interest from OS/2 users and some gentle arm twisting (ouch!) by the editors. As a work in progress, I welcome your thoughts about what we cover here.

Lexmark:

First, the good news! Lexmark has produced, without great fanfare, native OS/2 drivers for their 5700 and 7000 series inkjet printers. The 5700 costs about $250 and is designed to compete directly with the Cannon BJ700, the HP722, and the Epson Stylus Color 600. The 7200 prints at 1200x1200, and can use two color cartridges for 6 color printing, or a black and a 4 color cartridge for normal printing. Info on their web page says these OS/2 drivers also work with the 7000! So for those of you who bought a Lexmark 7000 and were told that there were never going to be OS/2 drivers, go get 'em. The url is through http://www.lexmark.com. This may be a very good bet, since Lexmark is good about standing behind their products, and my review of the lower end Color 3000 some time ago was quite favorable.

Epson:

Also, a mixed bag from Epson. They have released a new series of Photo quality printers, including the Photo 700 (replacing the Photo) for around $280. The bad news is that there are no new native OS/2 drivers (at least so far), although I have been able to use the older Version 1.02 German drivers for the Photo to good effect. The good news is that the older models (Epson Photo, and 600) can be picked up real cheap (less than $200) at the local computer shows, and the German drivers work just fine with them.

CFM TWAIN drivers:

Let's see, what else is out there... Oh yes, on the scanning front BMT Micro is offering a bundle of PMView and the German CFM TWAIN drivers for a modest $79.95.

The CFM drivers are stated to work with the following scanners:
Cannon	CanoScan 300/600, IX- 3010,4015,4025, and DR- 3020
Epson	GT-4000, 5000, 8500, & 9000
Fujitsu	ScanPartner 10, 10C, 600C, Jr.
HP	ScanJet IIC,IICX, 3C, 3P, 4C, 4P, and 6100C
Microtek	ScanMaker II, IIG, II600Z, IISP, IISP600, IIHR, III, and E3, E6
Mustek	3pass and 1pass SCSI

Solution Technology:

Actually, while I'm at it, another scanning option is from Solution Technology:

Their TWAIN drivers are now at version 1.6, and seem to work quite well.

Solution Technology drivers currently support these scanners:
Epson	GT- 5000, 6000, 6500, 8000, 8500, 9000, 9500
Fujitsu	ScanPartner 10, 10C, 600, Jr.
HP	Scanjet IIC, IICX, IIP, 3C, 3P, 4C, 4P, 5P, 6100C and SCSI Card third party support with Symbios NCR 53C416
Logitech	Scanman 256 (grey scale only)

Some of these are relatively inexpensive scanners, so you might want to take a copy of this article with you on your next shopping trip.

Supported software for the STI TWAIN drivers includes Applause, ColorWorks, Photo>Graphics Pro, Embellish, and PM View. For further information, contact STI directly.

PMSANE drivers:

For the more adventurous, there are also the PMSANE drivers (SANE stands for Scanner Access Now Easy) for OS/2. These are a port of the freeware Linux drivers, and can be found at Hobbes:

Further information about SANE is available from their website:

See you next month, and remember, this is your column. Send questions, comments, and suggestions to tony@scoug.com.

By day, Tony Butka is a bureaucrat for Los Angeles County. In his other life he lives in a loft surrounded by computers, printers, and a host of vinyl records.

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