I have a Visioneer 3300 parallel port flat-bed scanner. Works great for the two or three times a month I scan documents. I have the scanner connected to my old NT4 box because with a parallel port, SANE does not support the scanner and never will. The NT4 box is networked and I easily save the scanned documents to my primary Slackware box. In all, works just fine, costs nothing additional to operate.
Then again, sure would be nice to move that old computer out of the office.
I migrated that same NT4 system into a VirtualBox virtual machine. Works great. The OSE version of VirtualBox does not support parallel ports. The PUEL version does not either, but does support USB. Yet even with a parallel port to USB converter, the scanner won't work in my virtual NT4 --- no decent USB support. W2K has USB support, and I have a W2K virtual machine, but I would have to run the PUEL version of VirtualBox rather than the OSE version and I have to buy a parallel port to USB gizmo. Even then, the scanner will not be recognized as anything familiar.
Yes, buying a new USB scanner is an option, but then I'd have One More Functioning Computer Device Sitting On The Shelf.
Ideally, I'd like to find a way to run the scanner in Slackware rather than through my networked NT4 box. I'm looking for ideas, hacks, whatever. I can survive just fine with my current setup, but the technical challenge of finding a hack . . . .
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