Old Epson SCSI/parallel scanner: make it work on WinXP?

[imported_stev]

I bought an Epson Expression 836XL scanner, which is a large-size scanner that uses either SCSI or parallel port interfaces. Epson makes a WinXP driver, which prompted me to think this scanner would actually work, but it turns out the WinXP driver only supports SCSI. When I plug in the scanner and turn on the computer, the OS never makes any indication that it knows something is connected to the parallel port, even when I turn the scanner on. And yes, I am using a printer cord, not the SCSI cable, even though the SCSI cable will fit into the parallel port.

One way of getting this to work would be to find some sort of generic scanner driver for a parallel interface. It's a long shot, I know, but I'm wondering if anyone could provide a link to any driver databases that might carry such a thing? Anyone ever have any success with such a crazy endeavor?

Another option would be to connect the scanner to a Windows 95/98 machine. I don't have multiple systems laying around (nor do I want more systems) so I would have to see if WMware would allow Win98 to be installed over WinXP and still have the hardware and driver compatibility of Win98. Does anyone know if WMware would be a viable option and if so, does anyone know where to buy a copy of Windows 98?

I won't be buying a SCSI card because I can't justify an additional cost on behalf of this scanner when I'm not even sure if that will work.

 

[OSX]

You can just get an ACARD scsi controller for 20$, it's designed for this sort of thing.

 

[HO]

VueScan supports your scanner. It extended the life of my HP 4c. Demo available.

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: HO
VueScan supports your scanner. It extended the life of my HP 4c. Demo available.

This is very cool but at $50.00 you might as well buy a new USB scanner with the proper driver and software!

 

[CrispyFried]

might be worth checking if your printer port is set to ECP/EPP in the bios. then run scan for new hardware.

 

[dwcal]

Epson is terrible about Win2K/XP driver support. You have a few choices:

- Buy a 3rd party driver like Vuescan or Silverfast
- Keep an old computer with Windows 98 or NT
- Use it with Linux. SANE has drivers for most old SCSI scanners. You can test it easily with a liveCD like Knoppix.