I have some Kodak film scanners with scsi connectors. The last Mac we could use them with was the G4. Is this still the case? Has anyone created a scsi card for a G5 or later? Or an adaptor that might allow the scanner to work with a G5? If not, I may just find some G4s to use them with. Any suggestions? I can't bring myself to just throw away these suckers.
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G4 has a scsi card; did G5 have one?
- Thread starter dlsimmons
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As the G4 used a SCSI card. I’d expect the same card to work in the G5. Except the last generation of G5. Which switched to PCIe.
Unless the card only has Mac OS 9 drivers.
I think ATTO or Adaptec made a SCSI card with OS X drivers.
Unless the card only has Mac OS 9 drivers.
I think ATTO or Adaptec made a SCSI card with OS X drivers.
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Yes. You can take a small mortgage out to pay for one as well. Not a solution if you want to rescue some old SCSI scanners since newer USB ones are likely to be better and cost much less than the adapters.
Thanks for the help folks. Keep the thoughts coming if anyone has any more. These film scanners are what we used at my newspaper from probably '99-'03. Kodak RFS 2035 Plus Film Scanner is the official name. When we went full-on digital with cameras, we put most of them to bed and kept one hooked up for archive scanning. Pretty sure they were like $14 grand new. Yeah, not nearly worth that now, but it is hard to just throw 'em in the landfill if there's a way to make 'em useful to someone. They do work really well by the way. Pretty fast and excellent color rendition. Sharp, too. I'm gonna start researching the info you all gave me and if I get luck (or not), I'll get back with you.
What SCSI interface do the scanners have?
I have a couple of SCSI cards used by a print shop, on I assume SCSI scanners, came with a few Quicksilvers I bought when they went under, I could let go of one of them reasonable, I'm pretty sure they have native OS X support, so they should work in a G5 with PCI/X slots, just not the G5 (2005) with PCI Express slots, tho they may work in a PCI-E to PCI adapter in one of those Mac's.
I have an AVA-2906 that is not bootable, has no firmware, has driver for OS X 10.1, and should work with the builtin drivers in 10.2.x-10.5.x, also working in PC's. It has a 25 PIN external SCSI interface and a 50 PIN internal SCSI interface.
I also have a AHA-2930CU Mac, is bootable, works with OS 8.6, OS 9.x and OX 10.1-10.5.x, looks like it has 68pin external SCSI interface and 50 PIN internal SCSI interface.
I don't have any cables or SCSI devices to test them, but they seem to work in my QS.
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I just uploaded some images of the scanner (Kodak RFS 2035) ports; cord that connects from scanner into the G4; and the G4 ports and PCI (?) card. Not sure if it'll help anybody, but figured why not?
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Looks like you have the same two cards I detailed in my last post that I have. Like I say, they should work in a G5 with PCI/X slots.
Your scanner cable is 25 PIN external SCSI, so really you only need the AVA-2906 and 10.2 or later should have built-in drivers for that card.
I'm unsure if you need drivers for the scanner itself?
Also, you will need a terminator for that last device on the SCSI bus.
Cool. Thanks for the help. Now I just need a little free time to get busy.
See if you have one of these laying around or connected to one of you scanners, it's a 50 PIN external SCSI terminator.
SCSI is daisy chain-able, normally the host card is ID 0 and you can set the devices 1-7 ID, and the last device must be terminated.
You may or may not have luck with OS X 10.5.x, as some of the Adaptec card drivers may have been removed.
Also, you may want/need software for the scanner itself, if it is a twain device, OS X has a program that works to scan with twain devices, tho it may not support all the features of the scanner like finding the correct SW from Kodak would.
You'll have to let us know what model Kodak scanner you have, and we can see if they ever made OS X SW, and if it can still be found.
Also, you may want/need software for the scanner itself, if it is a twain device, OS X has a program that works to scan with twain devices, tho it may not support all the features of the scanner like finding the correct SW from Kodak would.
You'll have to let us know what model Kodak scanner you have, and we can see if they ever made OS X SW, and if it can still be found.
Not a 50pin, strictly speaking, although there are 50 connectors there. These are called Centronic ports, cables and terminators if you are going to do a search online for one.
You have been really helpful. I appreciate it. And, yes, we do have some terminators laying around... somewhere. Good thing we're hoarders in the newspaper biz.
I can add that OS X kexts relating to SCSI family I/O functions did manage to survive all the way to the Snow Leopard developer builds that run on PPC.
And to @dlsimmons: definitely hold onto those scanners and find them new homes! They’re fairly hard to find now in working condition, and their CCD imaging sensors (despite their 6Mpx scan limit for 135) were solid. I’d offer to take one off your hands, but I already have a Plustek OpticFilm 7600i.