ES-300C & A4000/040
Chris: I've been following this thread about the Epson scanner problems
with 040 users but wanted to do some testing on my own before I posted the
results, and ask a few questions. First off, it seems to happen only when
the scanner module is trying to initialize the scanner. As soon as you hit
the PREVIEW button, or ACCEPT for the final scan, the scanner immediately
displays the E-I Interface error. When the copyback mode is off and you
start the scan, you can then go and turn on copyback without any problems
from the scanner. In fact, this usually speeds up the scan considerably.
So copyback doesn't seem to affect a scan already in progress where the
computer is receiving data. I imagine that during the scan, the scanner
module is sending some kind of acknowledge for handshaking, or is the
scanner the only device sending data?
From what I have been able to gather from the operation of the scanner,
this is how I guess a scan is done:
1. An initialize command is sent to the scanner to home the carriage and
set a default state.
2. Commands are then sent to set resolution, scanning area, brightness,
and other modes the user has selected for the preview or final scan.
3. The scan is then performed using some kind of handshaking between the
computer and scanner.
Mind you, I'm taking a wild guess on the operation considering I haven't
used a scope to actually check the sequence, nor do I have a technical
manual for the scanner. One thing I tried was to force the EPSON_SCAN
loader to load into Chip memory. When the loader is in chip memory, it
functions normally although rather slow. So it seems to follow the pattern
that the loader is having some kind of problem with data caching since it
is disabled for chip memory. So maybe trying a CacheClearE() command
before the initialization commands are sent to the scanner? Mind you, I'm
not an expert Amiga programmer by any means, but I like to do a little
digging before I get on and say "It doesn't work!!" 8^)
// John – (Who enjoys harrasing the vendors)
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