sane-abaton(5)

NAME

   sane-abaton - SANE backend for Abaton flatbed scanners

DESCRIPTION

   The  sane-abaton  library  implements  a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy)
   backend that provides access to Abaton flatbed  scanners.  At  present,
   only the Scan 300/GS (8bit, 256 levels of gray) is fully supported, due
   to the absence of programming information.  The Scan 300/S  (black  and
   white) is recognized, but support for it is untested.

   If you own a Abaton scanner other than the ones listed above that works
   with this backend, or if you own an Abaton scanner that does  not  work
   with  this  backend,  please contact [email protected]
   with the model number, so that arrangements  can  be  made  to  include
   support        for        it.        Have        a        look       at
   http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html concerning  subscription
   to sane-devel.

   Abaton  is  out  of  business,  and these scanners are not supported by
   Everex (the parent company of Abaton), nor  is  there  any  programming
   information to be found.  This driver is therefore based on information
   obtained by running Abaton's scanning desk accessory under MacsBug  and
   tracing the MacOS SCSI Manager calls it made during image acquisition.

   However,  the  protocol is very similar to, though not compatible with,
   the one used by the Apple scanners, therefore, if this backend is  ever
   extended  to  support  the  other Abaton models (they also made a color
   flatbed scanner), it may be possible to fill in some  "missing  pieces"
   from the (quite detailed) Apple scanner documentation.

DEVICE NAMES

   This backend expects device names of the form:

          special

   Where  special is the path-name for the special device that corresponds
   to a SCSI scanner. For SCSI scanners, the special device name must be a
   generic SCSI device or a symlink to such a device.  Under Linux, such a
   device name takes a format such as /dev/sga or /dev/sg0,  for  example.
   See sane-scsi(5) for details.

CONFIGURATION

   The  contents  of  the  abaton.conf file is a list of device names that
   correspond to Abaton scanners.  Empty lines and lines starting  with  a
   hash  mark  (#)  are  ignored.   See  sane-scsi(5)  on  details of what
   constitutes a valid device name.

FILES

   /etc/sane.d/abaton.conf
          The  backend  configuration  file  (see  also   description   of
          SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).

   /usr/lib/arch_triplet/sane/libsane-abaton.a
          The static library implementing this backend.

   /usr/lib/arch_triplet/sane/libsane-abaton.so
          The shared library implementing this backend (present on systems
          that support dynamic loading).

ENVIRONMENT

   SANE_CONFIG_DIR
          This environment variable specifies the list of directories that
          may contain the configuration file.  Under UNIX, the directories
          are separated by a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they  are  separated
          by  a  semi-colon  (`;').   If  this  variable  is  not set, the
          configuration file  is  searched  in  two  default  directories:
          first,   the   current  working  directory  (".")  and  then  in
          /etc/sane.d.  If the value of the environment variable ends with
          the  directory separator character, then the default directories
          are searched after the explicitly  specified  directories.   For
          example,  setting SANE_CONFIG_DIR to "/tmp/config:" would result
          in  directories  "tmp/config",  ".",  and  "/etc/sane.d"   being
          searched (in this order).

   SANE_DEBUG_ABATON
          If  the  library  was  compiled with debug support enabled, this
          environment variable controls the debug level for this  backend.
          E.g.,  a  value  of 255 requests all debug output to be printed.
          Smaller levels reduce verbosity.

BUGS

   There are a few known ones, and definitely some unknown ones.

   Scan area miscalculations
          For the sake of programmer efficiency, this backend handles  all
          measurements  in  millimetres,  and  floors (rather than rounds)
          values to  avoid  possible  damage  to  the  scanner  mechanism.
          Therefore,  it  may not be possible to scan to the extreme right
          or bottom edges of the page.

   Cancelling the scan
          This might not work correctly, or it might abort  the  frontend.
          The former is more likely than the latter.

   If  you have found something that you think is a bug, please attempt to
   recreate it with the SANE_DEBUG_ABATON environment variable set to 255,
   and  send  a  report  detailing  the  conditions surrounding the bug to
   [email protected].

TODO

   Implement non-blocking support

   Finish reverse-engineering the MacOS driver
          This will  allow  me  to  add  support  for  other  models  with
          reasonable  confidence  that  it  will work, as well as to fully
          exploit the information returned by the INQUIRY command.

SEE ALSO

   sane(7), sane-scsi(5), scanimage(1)

AUTHOR

   The sane-abaton backend was partially written by David  Huggins-Daines,
   based on the sane-apple backend by Milon Firikis.

                              11 Jul 2008                   sane-abaton(5)

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