NAME

       sane-abaton - SANE backend for Abaton flatbed scanners

DESCRIPTION

       The  sane-abaton library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend that provides
       access to Abaton flatbed scanners. At present, only the Scan 300/GS (8bit, 256  levels  of
       gray)  is  fully supported, due to the absence of programming information.  The Scan 300/S
       (black and white) is recognized, but support for it is untested.

       If you own a Abaton scanner other than the ones listed above that works with this backend,
       or  if  you  own  an  Abaton  scanner that does not work with this backend, please contact
       sane-devel@alioth-lists.debian.net with the model number, so that arrangements can be made
       to  include  support for it. Have a look at http://www.sane-project.org/mailing-lists.html
       concerning subscription to sane-devel.

       Abaton is out of business, and these scanners are not  supported  by  Everex  (the  parent
       company  of Abaton), nor is there any programming information to be found.  This driver is
       therefore based on information obtained by running Abaton's scanning desk accessory  under
       MacsBug and tracing the MacOS SCSI Manager calls it made during image acquisition.

       However,  the protocol is very similar to, though not compatible with, the one used by the
       Apple scanners, therefore, if this backend is ever extended to support  the  other  Abaton
       models  (they  also  made  a  color  flatbed  scanner), it may be possible to fill in some
       "missing pieces" from the (quite detailed) Apple scanner documentation.

DEVICE NAMES

       This backend expects device names of the form:

              special

       Where special is the path-name for the special device that corresponds to a SCSI  scanner.
       For  SCSI  scanners, the special device name must be a generic SCSI device or a symlink to
       such a device.  Under Linux, such a device  name  takes  a  format  such  as  /dev/sga  or
       /dev/sg0, for example.  See sane-scsi(5) for details.

CONFIGURATION

       The  contents  of the abaton.conf file is a list of device names that correspond to Abaton
       scanners.  Empty lines and  lines  starting  with  a  hash  mark  (#)  are  ignored.   See
       sane-scsi(5) on details of what constitutes a valid device name.

FILES

       /etc/sane.d/abaton.conf
              The backend configuration file (see also description of SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).

       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-abaton.a
              The static library implementing this backend.

       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sane/libsane-abaton.so
              The  shared  library  implementing  this  backend  (present on systems that support
              dynamic loading).

ENVIRONMENT

       SANE_CONFIG_DIR
              This environment variable specifies the list of directories that  may  contain  the
              configuration  file.   On  *NIX  systems,  the directories are separated by a colon
              (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated by a semi-colon (`;').  If this  variable  is
              not  set, the configuration file is searched in two default directories: first, the
              current working directory (".") and then in  /etc/sane.d.   If  the  value  of  the
              environment  variable ends with the directory separator character, then the default
              directories are searched after the explicitly specified directories.  For  example,
              setting  SANE_CONFIG_DIR  to "/tmp/config:" would result in directories tmp/config,
              ., and /etc/sane.d being searched (in this order).

       SANE_DEBUG_ABATON
              If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this  environment  variable
              controls the debug level for this backend.  E.g., a value of 255 requests all debug
              output to be printed.  Smaller levels reduce verbosity.

BUGS

       There are a few known ones, and definitely some unknown ones.

       Scan area miscalculations
              For the sake of programmer efficiency, this backend  handles  all  measurements  in
              millimetres, and floors (rather than rounds) values to avoid possible damage to the
              scanner mechanism.  Therefore, it may not be possible to scan to the extreme  right
              or bottom edges of the page.

       Cancelling the scan
              This  might not work correctly, or it might abort the frontend.  The former is more
              likely than the latter.

       If you have found something that you think is a bug, please attempt to  recreate  it  with
       the  SANE_DEBUG_ABATON  environment  variable  set to 255, and send a report detailing the
       conditions surrounding the bug to sane-devel@alioth-lists.debian.net.

TODO

       Implement non-blocking support

       Finish reverse-engineering the MacOS driver
              This will allow me to add support for other models with reasonable confidence  that
              it  will  work, as well as to fully exploit the information returned by the INQUIRY
              command.

SEE ALSO

       sane(7), sane-scsi(5), scanimage(1)

AUTHOR

       The sane-abaton backend was partially  written  by  David  Huggins-Daines,  based  on  the
       sane-apple(5) backend by Milon Firikis.

                                           11 Jul 2008                             sane-abaton(5)