Hi list .... I'm urgently looking for a backend driver for a Plustek PL 812 (USB / ADF + Flatbed) scanner. Looks like there's (bu-huuuu) currently no backend that supports it.
Is anybody out there currently working on a backend or started that at some point in time in the past ? I would be willing to develop // help in developing a backend myself. I'm a very experienced professional C/C++ Windows (<-- don't laugh !) and embedded (vxWorks, CE, no OS) developer, but besides some minor things I didn't do much generic Unix development up to now. Also I'm not very familar with USB interface programming (while I did some diffrent low-level device interfaces via serial / SPI). <ironic>Sounds like perfect premises for me to do something like that, right ?</ironic> Well, at least I could learn something and if it works, help the community. But it would be great if somebody could help me alittle to bring me on speed making the first baby steps. I plan to use a USB sniffer (hardware) on the PL-812 on Windows to try to reverse engineer the protocol. I don't think this will be the worst part. But actually, I don't know where to start with developing and have a few questions to the more experienced guys out there: 1) the backend-writing doc (http://www.sane-project.org/backend-writing.txt) suggest to start with a standalone test programm. Is there some kind of a framework or existing test programm that can be modified for starting ? 2) the same document suggest (sounds like a good plan!) to extend existing backends whenever possible or use existing backends as a starting point at least. Any idea which one could be a good starting point for the PL-812 ? 3) Is there any further documentation out there to get me on speed ? Or books on that subject-matter (also the relevant parts of Unix / USB programming that might be needed) ? 4) What is an ususal ammount of time one would plan for developing a backend for a certain scanner ? 5) BTW, my environment will be a Kubuntu Linux distribution. Anything special about that ? Thanks for your help! I know, those questions sound like I will never make that happen in a reasonable ammount of time, but once I know where to start that will change - I'm really a good and incredible quick developer, usually ... Marco Freudenberger Darmstadt/Hessen/Germany
