Free Scanner

I have an HP Scanjet G3010 that worked with Windows XP but doesn't seem to want to do so with Windows 10. If anybody can use it then it's yours for the picking up. It and I live in the Croydon/Bromley area.

If you'd like to carry on using it, there's always VueScan software - not free, but it works. I use it for a Nikon film scanner.

Rob

Links to https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/hp_scanjet_g3010.html#technical-information

I run XP on my W10 laptop using VMware virtual machine to use my Cannoscan scanner that also will not work directly in W10. I have a folder that is shared by W10 and the virtual machine to swap files between the two systems.

Martin C

I also use ViewScan to run my scanner which did not work after installing Win 11 (grrrr ##$%%@@ !!!). Not free but way cheaper than buying a new, quality machine.

I use Silverfast, again not free but supports lots of older scanners although it is scanner specific so you need to get the copy for your particular scanner. Looking on the net there are some free alternatives which may work, worth trying some if you don’t want to get a new scanner.

I bought a HP G4050 scanner and the scan quality on Windows 7 was very poor.

Buying VuScan it not only worked then, and still does on windows 11, but the scan quality was improved by several orders of magnitude.

Before you get rid of your scanner I suggest you purchase VuScan (or perhaps silverfast - I have not used it but I have seen equally good reports for it) as even if it does not solve your present problem - in my experience it may well increase the quality of image you get from a replacement scanner and so be worthwhile anyway.

C'mon guys, your not playing the great computer rip off game properly. When 'Sloth change their O/S, all the software and hardware suppliers have free range to redundify the bits your cash has gone into. Users may complain but eventually capitulate and fall into line. My own U-max scanner was relegated to collect dust when I was dragged kicking and screaming from XP to Doze 7, can't see 11 on the horizon any time soon, that would mean a new Lappy, Cartridge ink scam? converted to CISS long ago.

Industry drives the change for bigger and better, Joe public is just a VERY lucrative spin off.

Regards Ian.

PS. E5 and E10 rot yer rubbers.

Edited By Circlip on 17/05/2023 09:37:32

Many thanks to all who suggested ways to use the old scanner. However, I already have a new one, hence the need to dispose of the G3010. Just seems a shame to bin it.

Probably some very useful ground steel rods inside!

You could put it outside your house with a note saying "£5" somebody will relieve you of it in short order.

Circlip has hit the nail smack on the head. M$ (& others) appear to deliberately to make both ancilliary equipment and software redundant, so much so that I refused to play their game when they stopped supporting XP and it was going to cost a lot of money just to upgrade to (their) current values, something I objected to strongly. Maybe it's because I'm a Yorkshireman, but I really do not see why I should have to scrap otherwise fully working equipment just to support M$'s bottom line.

Having said that, I can understand (even though I don't like it) M$'s point of view, they are, after all, a business and are out to make as much money as they can for their shareholders. But, as I'm sure is now well known, not at my expense!

Unfortunately though, I discovered recently that M$ are not the only business after emptying your (and mine) wallet in their favour. HP seem to have adopted the policy whereby certain cartidges for inkjet printers over 10 years old are no longer available, even though the printer is still working fine. And unfortunately, after market cartridges and my HP 6122 have in the past caused me some problems. As Circlip says though, sooner or later we'll be forced into line whether we like it or not!

Yes, maybe I'll consider going over to laser!

Cheers, from a saddened,

Peter G. Shaw

Isn't the problem that HP et al cannot be expected to go on supporting their products indefinitely?

Whilst I can see the point that manufacturers don't want to spend time updating drivers for products that don't last forever, there are some products which get little use and will last a very long time because of it. My scanner was bought in 2008 and to replace now would cost in the region of £1000, not something you want to do just because a suitable driver is not available. HP have just created and sent out firmware updates on their printers which negate the use of non HP inks. I also see that Epson are dropping laser printers from 2005, so any one with one may find it is no longer supported. My inkjet printer runs with a continuous ink system from an independent supplier, where a 125ml of ink is about £30. But like all things these days we are in a throw away society and big buisness relies on use to follow suit.

Sometimes (in fact, at all times) with software over time you acquire what is known as technical debt. Also over time there are significant advances in technology and the way things are done/handled.

At some point rather than carrying that technical debt with you from version to version it is simpler to have a clean break and re-write some or all of a given system.

also as time moves, on newer models/versions of things exist and the need to support older versions diminish because there are fewer and fewer of them (take a look at the car industry for an example). it becomes a cost benefit exercise then on what to support going forward. It's not just a matter of obsoleting things to force you to buy new, it's just as simple as times change and things improve along with it.

I've glossed over a lot here but the chief goal is not to force you to spend money, its to improve things for as many people as possible.

I couldn't expect to fit a 1950s carb on a 2023 injection engine (or tesla for that matter) for example, the technologies are incompatible

Edited By Rooossone on 17/05/2023 15:52:51

+1 on what Rooosss said - although it's nice to think they are all out to get you, things do move on. How many of us are still using wind-up grampohones playing 78 rpm records with bamboo needles, or watching 405-line VHF televisions on a day to day basis? Or making our home movies on 9.5mm or standard 8 film, or even VHS-C analogue video cameras?

Yes, it hurts, but sometimes you have to bite the bullet (and on that subject, why are the army not still using good old .303 ammunition?) and upgrade.

Rob

Short of the .50 cal, .303 is my favourite calibre. I'm a sucker for a big boom.

But as you mention above just because an item is old or antiquated, doesn't mean there aren't people out there that can service and support that particular niche, certainly as people are describing with third party drivers for this scanner.

Edited By Rooossone on 17/05/2023 19:54:25

How long should manufactuers support their products? I rather suspect that we could argue over this for ever and a day without coming to a sensible answer. Some people seem to think that it, whatever 'it' may be, should be abandoned once an improved, more up to date device is produced. But why? Why should the consumer be required to scrap fully working devices just because a more up to date version is available? Perhaps if there was a part-exchange scheme available it might be acceptable.

But lets take a personal problem I had a few years ago, something which even now leaves me with a nasty taste. 15 years we bought a 2 year old diesel car (no names, no pack drill) so it was reasonably modern. It was the worst car I have ever had the misfortune to own, and that's saying something considering some of the other vehicles I've owned. After five years we had had enough so we got rid and bought a new Toyota Avensis petrol. 10 years later, that Avensis is today still going strong, 120K miles on the clock (50% more than the duff car), MPG is still the same as it was when new. Other than normal servicing we have not had to pay a penny for repairs.

Now some people will say that at 10 years old, the Toyota is clapped out, inefficient, uneconomical, etc etc. But is it? Comparison with the previous car showed that it wasn't that much less economical than the diesel. Tyre life is vastly improved, yet according to various 'experts' the diesel tyre life was satisfactory! The diesel had a new clutch at 56K, and a 'new' engine at 59K. Plus other things. So which is/was the better vehicle? The one with the 'modern common rail diesel, or the one with the basic non-turbo petrol?

Reverting back to the original point, it seems to me that for the vast majority of people, updating because it, whatever 'it' is, is simply not necessary. Ok, I'm not talking about 78rpm records and bamboo needles, I'm talking about a printer which prints the occasional letter, or drawing, or whatever. Used in the home environment, or for that matter in an office. I'm not talking about worn out equipment, I'm simply talking about something that works and works and ... Of course, failure is something else and is not what I'm talking about. But unfortunately, and this is where we came in, certain manufacturers (understandably) make it difficult to keep otherwise good equipment working. And that is my point - just why should businesses like Microsoft and/or HP dictate that users should scrap otherwise good equipment which, ok, it may not have all the bells and whistles, but are they actually required? To put it another way, should I scrap my Toyota just because it's 10 years old and doesn't have a battery in it?

Somehow, I doubt we'll ever solve this one.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

A lack of backwards compatibility is bound to happen at some point when starting afresh is a better solution.Or with how quickly electronics change, a necessity.

Deliberately hobbling an existing and working device with forced software upgrades is something that we've come to accept as normal. But that's our fault, as we should have refused to buy anything else from the first companies that did it. Them changing licensing requirements after some time is equally unacceptable. Servicing is similar, I would point out the £1500(or more!!) cost for replacing the timing belt on Ford's ghastly 1.0l triple fitted to most of their common cars.

Locking you into consumables has been a sales and marketing dream for some time, I think Gilette started it with the double-edged safety razor.

None of this changes the fact that common stuff should be standardised but often isn't - look how long it took for mobile phone companies to realise that proprietry chargers actually cost them money, when all they needed to do was swap to USB ports and they would no longer need to even include a cable yet wouldn't need to reduce the retail price. That's just one of a long list; document formats, car charging plugs, batteries and many others all have similar problems.

Much of this is driven by marketing and sales. Manufacturers desperately need to sell as many people as possible a new thing, and will do anything to convince us we need to buy them. Often that simply isn't true, as Peter points out with his car - a new one isn't going to be significantly better to justify for him the massive cost of buying one. I doubt he's the only one...

Peter makes a good point about unnecessary obsolescence, but ask who pays our pensions, and where the money comes from?

The dosh comes from an expanding economy that always has to sell more and more goods and services. At present, the game is compulsory, with severe penalties for failure. Consider the old Myford, an enterprise that earned a good living for half a century by making and selling lathes and accessories. Over time two threats appeared: one was competition from anyone selling a more modern and/or cheaper lathe; the other was that Myford lathes last a long time in amateur service, and were priced such that second-hand Myfords were more attractive to purchasers than new.

The combination became a grievous assault on Myfords income. Companies exist to earn a profit, which pays wages, taxes, pensions, and more growth. As wealth is generated by economic activity if follows that anything that increases activity is good, and anything that decreases it is bad. Myford didn't find a way of increasing their income, and their people now do something else, that we hope is profitable, whatever it is. Standard right-wing thinking: the weak go to the wall. My mates in the old British Telecom were all made redundant by packet switching and fibre-optics. Although the payoffs were fairly generous, it was devastating to men aged 50 or so - too old to learn a new job, and too young to retire early. Brutal, but BT exists to make money, not to support a redundant workforce,

One way of generating growth is ensure that products wear out or become obsolete. It's important that they be replaced. The system works well. Instead of manufacturing small numbers of expensive ivory handled razors, with stones and strops for rich folk and barbers, industry churns out millions of disposable safety razors that everyone can afford and use. Apart from barbers, everyone benefits even though a quality long lasting item was replaced by a cheap plastic consumable. And to rub it in, safety razors are made with between 1 and 5 blades, in various geometries, to suit different faces and beards - more choice. A selected safety razor shaves better than an expensive straight razor.

Same principle is applied to cars, computers, TVs and pretty much everything else. As a result, prices are pushed down and the average standard of living increases. Sometimes, competition pushes quality up as well, but for price is more important for most commodity products. And there are always casualties, youngsters losing jobs, and old men discovering they can't talk to a Bank Manager, write cheques or pay cash.

There's a flaw in continual expansion as a way of getting rich. It relies on the world having enough resources to maintain growth for ever, and on people not realising the bubble is going to burst. Therefore at some point in the future I expect the world to return to making expensive goods that last a long time. As this will be a major upheaval, it will have to be managed carefully, and it will be difficult. Get it wrong, and people will not only have to work years longer for a pension than we did, but their pension might not be worth anything when it arrives.

Not impossible to manage diminishing resources, but it requires aggressive recycling, responsible consumption, and a shift to services rather than manufacturing as a source of wealth. And the transition could go bang because large numbers of people haven't understood what's going on yet, or accepted the trajectory, and would rather die in a ditch than reform. It's only human - everyone hates change.

Dave

Well , we are going to have to think of a different economic model, because we can't go on increasing the world population for ever. We are already in trouble with atmospheric pollution owing to overpopulation as it is.

Our old inkjet printer stopped working after a house move, and since they only cost a few hundred pounds new, we looked at what was on offer.

Shocked to see that many printers now need a smartphone App to use the scanner function. And, no doubt, to use the App requires your name, address, email and mobile phone number - more personal data for the hackers !

So I am now involved with repairing the blocked printhead of the old printer, which needs no such App.

What saddens me is that new software is not written to be backwards compatible, i.e. new software should contain core language capable of driving an old printer to print a file from a word processor or print a standard photograph, just maybe not be capable of performing new features.

When I learned about television transmission standards in my first job, I was proud that the engineers had made the new PAL 625 colour signal backwards compatible to work on the old mono, (black and white) sets. (The older sets just ignored the colour information in the new transmitted signal, and the colour scene was coded at the studio to give an acceptable grey scale rendition on mono sets, as well as a good colour picture on sets that could decode and display the additional colour information).

Myford, and others like them could have evolved; They could have developed milling machines, drill presses, accessories, tooling, cheaper hobby machinery VFDs etc etc.

Toyota are well known for producing extremely long lasting and reliable vehicles. 

Mazda produced the MX-5; a modern, reliable version of the Spitfire, MG, Lotus and similar roadsters - those companies could have done that, but didn't.

Why has the text suddenly gone small? How bizarre !

Edited By John Doe 2 on 19/05/2023 23:55:53