[mythtv-users] Cheap SCSI scanners - was:The Bigger... Disk contest, Fall 2007 edition

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sat Oct 20 15:22:52 UTC 2007


Mike Perkins wrote:
> David Brodbeck wrote:
>> I even had a couple of SCSI devices for a while that both had no  
>> internal termination, *and* had no daisy-chain port for an external  
>> terminator.  This was particularly common on scanners.  They worked,  
>> sort of, if you put them on a SCSI-1 bus and there were no other  
>> devices.
>>
> Ugh. So-called SCSI scanners. Got bitten by one once. Connected it to the end of 
> my SCSI bus, powered up, and it completely hosed my SCSI hard disk (this was 
> about 10-11 years ago). The scanner got sent straight back to the store, and I 
> spent about a hour explaining that the scanner didn't follow the SCSI interface 
> specification properly before they would give me my money back. I had to 
> threaten them with Trading Standards in the end.
> 
> That sort of thing leaves a bad taste in the mouth. If the box says SCSI, it 
> should do what it says. None of this "let's implement just enough of the 
> standard to get our device to work with our closed source poorly written driver" 
> nonsense.

Then there were the so-called "scsi controllers" that shipped with some
"scsi" scanners (notably HP units).

They had DB-25F connectors and wouldn't "control" anything but the
scanner they shipped with. HP at least finally started putting labels on
them that said they were for "scanner use only", but that may have been
only to keep people from plugging their printers into the DB-25 connector.

Most scanners moving to USB was the only case where I was happy to see
something going from scsi to USB. You usually had to put a scsi scanner
on its own bus to prevent screwing up other devices.

It seems the manufacturers, at least of consumer gear, will always
choose the worst solution: VHS over Beta, USB over Firewire, IDE over
SCSI, NTSC over PAL (at least in the USA), 802.11B/G over 802.11A etc.

beww



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