Epson GT-5000

I was trying to install a scanner; Epson GT-5000 into a PC running Windows 2k. It has to be connected to the parallel port because it is an really old scanner. Even Epson is not supporting it anymore.



Thus, there is no way for me to get a legitimate TWAIN driver from the source; Epson. I have to get it from elsewhere. Of course, searches from the Internet would land one on the site of DriverGuide. It claims to have archived a total of 100,000+ drivers.

DriverGuide:
If you are wondering "how DriverGuide ever got incorporated?", I would like to suggest that the answer is hobby-cum-netpreneurship. This is because DriverGuide is essentially a site where its members collect driver's file from all over the places and then try to make business sense out of it. They don't liaise with Epson, HP or Fujixerox. This can be proven by the fact that one can actually find driver's file from DriverGuide in non-english medium. Take for example, the famous file for "twain262.exe" is a spanish-language file. Thus, it implies that someone manage to succumb the file from some Spanish computer and host it up to hope for revenue generation.

However, DriverGuide is actually a good place to visit. Despite providing the means of download for pay-only-member, one can also opted for free-download account. Of course, their core concern is to drive traffic to their URL and then they will decide on the best revenue-model. In most cases, it would be Internet-advertising.

TWAIN
It seems that TWAIN is a non-profit group which serves as the committee overseeing development and standards for TWAIN. Thus a scanner driver is called a TWAIN driver. Epson's driver for its scanner is indeed a TWAIN driver, don't be confused that "someone is looking for a scanner driver but instead given a TWAIN driver"

I think TWAIN is charging fees from its customers based on loyalty. From the web site, TWAIN specification and SDK(software development kit) can be obtained for free of charge.

Manual Mode and Auto mode:
Just two days ago, I was called up to help a friend who was experiencing problem with her Epson Expression scanner. Her complain was that "she is unable to crop the scanned material from a utility which used to show up everything she scans something. It just gone now.

Initially I thought it was some software corruption or Windows XP problems. And hence I proceeded with uninstalling the software and reinstall them again. It took me a while as I had to download the new TWAIN driver (scanner driver) from the Internet because Win2K TWAIN driver won't be installed to Windows XP PC. (From the device manager it showed that scanner was working properly, however, with the wrong TWAIN driver, it won't scan)

After everything was restored, the ghost is still there. The magic window or utility still didn't show-up. I began worried, has she been suffering from somekind of hallucination ? Is she for real ? the fact that I tried all over the places and couldn't find any clue to launching that utility described by her. What she said makes sense, there should be such tool for a scanner because one is supposed to be able to select the subset area to be scanned; from the utility.

As my cold sweat and stress was rising, I began to pay attention to some text written on the progress-bar window as I was scanning something, in hope for miracles. The text read "To scan in Manual mode instead of Auto Mode, press cancel"

That is it!!!! I found the ghost

Now I know that scanner's utlity is also known as "Manual mode", at least for Epson's printer. It is quite stupid yet brilliant. They should have placed a button with label of "Other utility" in the first place. It took me a while and thankfully the "cancel" button worked even though it suffered some multi-tasking inability. (One needed to press continuously on the "cancel" button because it is multi-task to accept event-called all the time. According to my friend, she had tried the button but just no response. I understood that completely, it is the software problem.

Windows XP:
Thus, there is nothing wrong with Windows XP. In fact, it is blessing for many like me to have Windows XP around because the provision of PC-maintenance service to my friends and "customers" has been really nice and easy ever since the days of Windows 2K,ME and 9x.

But I recently found a way to make Windows XP hang while performing a large operation.. It isn't quite the type of "hang" you would expect, this time is much more technical and thus forgiven. I will show you on later blog.

Nevertheless, I still couldn't setup the scanner; Epson GT-5000 to my Windows 2000 PC despite having tried out the file "EpsonGT-5000win2000.zip"

Perhaps the scanner is not functioning anymore. And my advice to you is that if you are looking to setup Epson GT-5000 to Windows 2000 and Windows XP, it would save you a hell lot of time by sending it to recycling factory and then get a latest model scanner.