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With this being the third volume of 'The Free Files'
I hope there's no need anymore to explain what it's about. Those who still want
to know may read one of the earlier volumes.
At the beginning I've got an addendum regarding Vol. 2 of this
series:
PMEURO by Carsten Müller has been
released in version 1.6, now offering the ability of updating the exchange rates
online. I wonder why such a solution hasn't been there until now. It's simply ingenius.
My only wish: even more exchange rates...
Besides this, at last I found a really useful, neat
and lean address-database: PMADRESSEN 2.1
by Thomas Nolte. It even
offers an export function (but unfortunately no import). Non-German users, however,
are left standing out in the cold because PMADRESSEN is exclusively available in
German, and at this point I recognize that (as a 'foreign' German in Austria one
just can't help but recognize this) PMADRESSEN lacks an entry field for countries.
There is not even an entry field for the area code. And since I'm already being
critical: BeOS icons may be nice, but I prefer those according to the OS/2 guidelines
(16x16, 20x20, 32x32 and 40x40 pixels with 16 colors) and the OS/2 style. Now this
is enough of my grousing, because according the the Deutsche Bank, which uses OS/2
on a large scale, these are only 'peanuts' [translator's note: a few years ago the
Deutsche Bank stated the loss of credits worth 50,000,000 Deutsche Mark through
the bankruptcy of a real estate tycoon, was peanuts].
Some of you may have asked yourselves why I'm not
writing about OS/2 and all those nice tools available, such as how to optimize the
system, etc? Well, what I haven't done so far I might do in the future, but at the
same time I think it would be a bit like 'l'art pour l'art'. We already know that
OS/2 is the 'best' operating system. Besides, I consider it more important to write
about applications. What else do I need a computer for? For messing around with
your computer Linux is better by far. Therefore I'll continue with:
To copy documents or pictures which are not yet available
in a computer-readable format, a scanner is needed if you don't want to bother with
using additional steps like sending them via FAX. So the whole excitement starts
already: which one works with OS/2?
A selective summary can be found at: http://www.warpdoctor.org/lib/info/scanner.html.
After a short look at it one will find out that several
models only - or better luckily - work with SANE. However, Scanner Access Now Easy
always had a strong by-touch of irony to me. A port to OS/2 of SANE (initially developed
for *X) exists and it's a good idea to start with the latest version 1.01 by Yuri
Dario. If it doesn't work for you, try using an older version.
One prerequisite to get SANE running is (with a few
exceptions) a thoroughly installed SCSI host adaptor which is supported by OS/2.
The 'lite' ones you often find bundled with the scanner most often do not work.
Also needed is the ASPIROUT.SYS driver and
the EMX runtime library 0.8d by Eberhard Matthes.
The following entries should appear in your Config.sys:
BASEDEV=OS2ASPI.DMD /ALL /SHAREIf you really want to be on the safe side add:
DEVICE=C:\OS2\BOOT\ASPIROUT.SYS (dependent on the location of ASPIROUT.SYS)
SET EMXOPT=-h120 (or higher value)
After a reboot (with your scanner switched on of course,
though some SCSI drivers allow the scanner to be switched off after system boot)
you're ready to start. With 'find-scanner.exe' you can figure out how to 'talk'
to your scanner. The result it delivers (e.g. b1t510) must be written into the corresponding
device.conf file (device = brand name of your scanner, e.g. mustek.conf).
Those who don't want to delay any longer may now immediatrly do a scan by typing
'scanimage -d device >image.ppm'. It is, however,
more convenient to first have the available possibilities (max. scanning size, resolution,
options, etc.) written in a file by typing 'scanimage -d device
--help >device.txt' which can be viewed by any text editor. Unfortunately
you might find results that don't fit your hardware in every respect (my scanner
for example doesn't allow gamma correction etc.). Thus your first task will be to
try it out. To make this procedure not all that difficult, it's a good idea to write
one (or better several) cmd scripts with any text editor, here's an example:
(color.cmd)
SET EMXOPT=-h120
D:
CD \OS2SCAN
scanimage -d mustek --mode color --gamma-table 5 -l 5 -t 5 -x 35 -y 42 --resolution 300 > D:\OS2SCAN\colour.ppm
The last line also serves as an example of the 'biggest
obstacle' when using SANE. Up to version 1.01 SANE exclusively writes its output
in pbm, pgm, pnm and ppm format. The only viewer available for OS/2 working flawlessly
with these formats is the well-known and highly recommended PMVIEW, that, unfortunately,
is not available for free. The freely available Generalized Bitmap Module GBM 1.1
by Andy Key it is true handles ppm etc., but it sometimes failed on the SANE output.
If
using cmd files for a longer time is either too burdensome or too simple, you can
chose between several frontends for SANE. First is the well-known PMSANE 0.52. For
sure this is the most elaborated frontend, but unfortunately it's also the most
problematic. Since there is no further development in sight, I can't give any recommendation.
Very good and useful are JSANE by Frank Schmittroth (if somebody wants to get in
contact with him, despite his German sounding name, he only speaks English), an
interesting implementation done in Java, and FESANE 0.02 by Pete Brown.
FESANE
offers the additional option to scan into PMVIEW directly, and you can watch the
image appearing during scanning process. A little tip: FESANE has an option to adjust
the scanning velocity which does not work with most scanners since they can't handle
numbers but only 'normal', 'fastest', etc. If this is the case for you, the entry
field 'Speed' must be set to 0. The biggest advantage of these frontends however
is also their biggest disadvantage: though they work together with most of the scanners
supported by SANE, they don't provide an interface to most of the scanner-specific
options (e.g. gamma correction, top-light units etc.).
Very brave or desperate people still have the opportunity to use SANE 1.0.3 which
is currently available in two beta versions either from Paul Floyd or Franz Bakan.
For me, at least the binaries from Frank Bakan work exceptionally well: at long
last scanimage quits automatically after scanning, Tiff is supported as a new format
(--format tif), that can be viewed even with the OS/2 system viewer... My only complaint
is that even fewer options are available for my scanner than with SANE 1.0.1. To
get SANE 1.0.3 working, you need the dlls included in PGCC-OS2-2.95.3-GCC.ZIP together
with the new Aspirout.sys (ASPIRB2.ZIP) by Paul Ratcliff, which is still in beta.
And more good news: Goran Ivankovics and I are currently
developing a new frontend named TAME/2
for SANE which already supports
the new features of 1.0.3. Using it is fairly easy, thanks to the additional scrollbars
for picture size or resolution, and all scanner-specific options will be accessible.
In internal tests TAME/2 already works almost no errors and the scanner database
with its options is currently being built with the kind support of other users.
Dr. Pollack kindly enhanced his FAXVIEW to display, convert, and edit the graphics
formats pbm, pgm, pnm und ppm, so that a free viewer will be included. The final
completion of a public beta actually depends on my (always too little) spare time,
but maybe it now exists with the release of this issue of the V.O.I.C.E. Newsletter.
To be continued (archiving)...