Actually those old scanners weren't much slower than today's low cost USB stuff.
After all, if you bought a scanner ten years ago, it cost some serious money, and
you wanted some performance out of it even back then - and you got it.
That's the reason why my ancient UMAX 1200x600 SCSI scanner won't have to
leave anytime soon - it isn't unbearably slow, its scan quality is still the same as
on day one (after I once disassembled it and cleaned the glass inside and outside
w/ glass cleaner and paper towel btw), and it has a transparency adapter too
regards, Peter