Re: [Leica] SCANNER HELP NEEDED

[John Collier <jbcollier@home.com>]

I cannot comment on the various scanners but will try to clarify the
Firewire issue. Firewire is a high speed hotplugable connection between the
scanner and the computer. It is supposed to be significantly faster and more
reliable than SCSI. The advantages are more useful with a commercial heavy
duty graphics set-up than with the average home computer. SCSI allows only a
limited number of devices to be daisy chained together, there are problems
with device ID numbers, and it dies big time if you accidentally unplug it
hot. If you have many devices you need attached it is a pain to have to
figure it all out before booting up and if you forget you a device you have
to shut everything down to hook it up. Firewire is plug and play and it will
be much faster when fully developed which it is not at present. If you are a
typical home user with only a few devices to hook up SCSI is fine (SCSI 2 is
even faster) but if you have three different printers, three different
scanners (hand, flatbed, neg), a honking drive or two, maybe a RAM drive,
digital camera, and .... look into Firewire, it is the way to go.

John Collier

> From: "Joe Codispoti" <joecodi@thegrid.net>
> 
> Having seen the large scan of the Nikon S3 I am reminded that I need to
> replace my present flat-bed paperweight/scanner.
> My needs are limited to scanning photos and other images for email and web
> publishing. I am aware that high resolution is not of the utmost importance
> here but I would like sharpness, color fidelity, and overall quality
> nevertheless. Although I have no need for drum-scan quality, I tend to
> choose higher end equipment.
> 
> So far, I am leaning  towards the 1200 DPI, HP 6300 series ($315 street)
> models or the U-Max equivalents ($200) but I wonder if I should consider the
> U-Max PowerLook III ($900-1000 street) or the soon to be available PowerLook
> 1100 (I am sure over $1000) witch will offer Firewire capability. What
> benefit would Firewire have in a flat-bed scanner? Lacking the experience of
> members in this group, I am afraid to commit to large expenditures without
> some expert advice.
>