[HN Gopher] Reviving the coolest scanner you've never heard of
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Reviving the coolest scanner you've never heard of
Author : ktkaufman
Score : 153 points
Date : 2022-09-04 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ktkaufman03.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (ktkaufman03.github.io)
| ktkaufman wrote:
| By popular demand, the article now has a picture of the scanner
| _I_ have access to - an F135 Plus - with a bit more information
| about how it 's used. For those who wish to see an F235 and/or
| F335, I recommend Google Images, since I'm not going to use
| someone else's pictures without their permission.
| DavidRogers0000 wrote:
| jtchang wrote:
| I'm in awe at the level of expertise required to dive this deep
| into the kernel.
|
| At one point there are very few people who have even looked at
| piece of code you are looking at.
|
| Are you going to release patches so at least other people can
| replicate things?
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Patched versions of the original drivers will be released,
| along with the new drivers. I'm not sure if I'll release the
| source code yet because of the legal gray area around this sort
| of work, but it's still something I'm considering.
| eddieh wrote:
| This is great, but why didn't I see a photo of the scanner?
| ktkaufman wrote:
| I've addressed this a couple of times in response to others,
| but the main problem is that there are _multiple models_ that
| look quite different from each other. I could pick one, but
| that wouldn 't be telling the whole story, or I could show them
| all and add extra clutter to the page.
|
| That being said, I'll probably just pick a model and add a
| picture to the article. Google Images is good for finding the
| others.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Reviving the coolest scanner you 've never heard of_
|
| But I have heard of it. Does that mean the scanner isn't the
| coolest anymore? Or maybe just the author.
| ktkaufman wrote:
| A more accurate title would be "Reviving the coolest scanner
| you've _probably_ never heard of ", but it was already a bit
| long.
|
| I make no claims about my own coolness :-)
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Great article. And Paton is the fastest scanner you can have for
| old 120 film scanning.
|
| Hope more on the user side can come.
| sethkau wrote:
| Alas, Pakon only scans 35mm film. No 120. I wish.
| mfwit wrote:
| As a photographer who has always lusted over Pakons and will
| eventually own one, I truly appreciate the effort here.
| muststopmyths wrote:
| Wow mention of Walter oney's book brings back memories of
| learning to write NT drivers back in the day. A classic book of
| the time
| ktkaufman wrote:
| I had never even heard the name "Walter Oney" before I started
| researching this thing. I was pleasantly surprised by how well
| his 20 year old code held up, though.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Coolest scanner? Thought we were talking the IC-R9000 for a
| minute there.
| ktkaufman wrote:
| That does look pretty cool!
| userbinator wrote:
| Making old hardware work with new software and vice-versa has
| always felt like the true "hacker spirit"; more so when source
| code isn't even needed, contrary to what many FOSS advocates
| think. Much like how you don't need the original design drawings
| and such to fix physical machines, but just need to understand
| what's wrong and how to correct it. This is also near right-to-
| repair.
|
| It's also worth noting that "ezloader" USB interface was later
| acquired by Cypress and became the infamous FX2/FX2LP MCUs that
| popularised a lot of USB devices, including logic analysers.
|
| (I usually do more of the latter, but the same skills are used.)
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Good point about the Cypress acquisition. While I was
| investigating part of the driver code recently, I realized it
| was based on FX2 sample code. The development kit that I got,
| on the other hand, was pre-FX2. The article notes that Cypress
| acquired Anchor Chips, the original creator of EZ-USB, in 1999,
| which would seem to line up perfectly with the time frame in
| which the Pakon scanners were developed.
| blacklion wrote:
| I own Nikon CoolScan 9000, which I picked up for cheap without
| film adapters/holders. It takes me more than year to find 120
| film adapter on EBay and it cost me as good flat-bed scanner
| alone. But, boy, quality of scans of good 120 slide film! I never
| liked colour negatives, but MF Velvia 100F is a magic!
| nicoburns wrote:
| This is pretty cool. Would you consider releasing the reverse
| engineered source code? I imagine that could be pretty helpful
| for anyone dealing with future OS changes (perhaps trying to make
| this work on Windows ARM for example, or even linux), and while
| it's probably technically against the license agreement, I can't
| imagine anyone would care much about such old software that's no
| longer maintained.
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Like steve_austin said, releasing the code is in a grey area.
| Realistically, it's highly unlikely that anyone would actually
| be upset about it, so it _may_ happen in the future.
|
| Linux support is a completely different beast. There is a _lot_
| of code that I didn 't talk about, including the absolutely
| massive image post-processing/color-correction library that we
| only have a Windows version of (and no source code for,
| obviously.) The Pakon's added complexity (especially
| automatically finding frame boundaries) makes a cross-platform,
| source-code-less port extremely unlikely to succeed in a
| remotely reasonable amount of time.
| robocat wrote:
| Perhaps share the code privately with someone in another
| jurisdiction that is more suitable (reverse engineering laws,
| copyright, whatever), and that person can take the legal
| liability? Perhaps someone who owns a scanner like user
| yesimahuman in this thread?
| steve_austin wrote:
| It seems like a grey area. Especially given that the driver is
| a mash-up of sample code from a third-party hardware SDK and a
| Microsoft book, would Kodak/Pakon really care?
|
| I would think the only part of the software that still might
| retain trade secrets would be the color management code, and
| that's not in the driver.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Maybe there's a way to distribute dissembler hints and
| patches where you need the original driver files to get the
| source code. I assume the MS code has a reasonable license
| since it was published as sample code
|
| > trade secrets would be the color management code
|
| Are trade secrets even protected? If there's a patent, yes,
| but that's expired. The implementation is protected by
| copyright, but the know-how isn't.
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Kodak sold a lot of their patents to other companies as a
| result, IIRC, of their bankruptcy. I'd have to look at the
| patents for this particular system again, because I can't
| remember if they were ever reassigned or if they were
| simply allowed to expire.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I don't think reassignment changes the duration of the
| patent. Looks like the early versions of the devices came
| out in 2004, so it's getting really close to when they'd
| expire.
|
| IANAL, but my concern would be distributing either the
| original drivers or 64-bit drivers, but in practice, no
| one is going to care. It's not worth an hour of a
| lawyer's time to send a cease and desist letter for
| distributing driver source for an 18-year-old device.
| mdaniel wrote:
| > Maybe there's a way to distribute dissembler hints
|
| Tavis recently posted about using STABS for that
| <https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/symbols.html> and has existing
| code that seems relevant: https://github.com/taviso/wpunix/
| blob/main/debug/idb2stabs.p...
|
| I've never used Ghidra in anger to know if it would work
| for their platform, nor whether the Ghidra database can be
| shipped separate from the binary
| sethkau wrote:
| Trade secrets may not be protected by patents (if expired),
| but protection of them is a potential motivation for
| copyright litigation.
| jamesfmilne wrote:
| Cool machine.
|
| Our company used to build 35mm film scanners, called Northlights,
| for film post-production.
|
| Originally they were driven by SGI Octanes. Then x86 Linux
| machines. Biggest problem these days would be the interface
| cards. I believe we were stuck with PCI-X cards for a long time,
| requiring host machines capable of accepting them.
|
| We still support them, as there are many still in active use on
| both new films and restoration/archival jobs.
|
| https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/northlight/overview_nl...
| ktkaufman wrote:
| TIL about PCI-X. Northlight looks like a pretty cool piece of
| hardware! It's cool to see what other obscure stuff is out
| there - that's why I like Hacker News :-)
| yesimahuman wrote:
| Very cool! I own a Pakon F135+ and using it through a VM has
| worked well enough for me, but I've always wanted someone to
| modernize the tooling so that wasn't necessary. Thanks for
| putting in the work here!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > the package had never actually been opened, and contained the
| original packing slip... with a date several years before I was
| born.
|
| But the packing slip says 1999!!!!
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Fun fact: People born in 2004 are all turning 18 this year :)
|
| And still, 2004 feels "a few years ago" to me. I don't know if
| I'll ever get used to it.
| ianai wrote:
| Oh wow, to think I was a college sophomore then. Ouch. Right
| to the ego!
| copperx wrote:
| > Right to the ego!
|
| You mean as an ego boost, right? You're certainly wiser
| than anyone born circa 2000s. We can hack drivers for
| breakfast.
| [deleted]
| zen_1 wrote:
| Yeah the earliest I can stomach driver hacking is
| lunchtime
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Indeed it does. I was born a few years later :-) That's what I
| love about "digital archaeology" like this - it's so much fun
| to find and explore things from a time you can't possibly
| imagine on your own.
| brnt wrote:
| You call our childhood "archeology"? Get off our lawn! People
| born after 2000 aren't real anyways.
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Huh, I guess I should tell everyone I know that I don't
| exist ;)
|
| In all seriousness, I like learning about things that were
| before my time, and that's why I use the term
| "archaeology." It's not _really_ archaeology, since I know
| plenty of people who were alive at the time, but it still
| appeals to my inner curiosity.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Don't worry, we all appreciate it!
| IYasha wrote:
| A few photos of the subject would be nice. (if I'm not missing
| them due to ad blocker, in which case - sorry)
| ktkaufman wrote:
| I've added a picture of my scanner to the article :-)
| kepler1 wrote:
| .
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Apologies for jumping into code - this _is_ "Hacker" News,
| after all. The feedback is still appreciated. I actually meant
| to include pictures but forgot :/
|
| The practical results can best be described as 36 super high-
| quality TIFFs (if you scan a full 35mm roll) obtained in just a
| couple of minutes. You can find more information by looking at
| other online sources - one I'd recommend reading, if you're
| interested, is
| https://www.dantestella.com/technical/f235plus.html.
|
| I'm not surprised that it's relatively unknown - after all,
| digital photography has mostly taken over, and even those
| people who benefited from drug-store film development/scanning
| _probably_ wouldn 't have cared too much about what hardware
| was in use.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| Cool work, but how do you write this entire article and not post
| a single picture of the scanner?
| ktkaufman wrote:
| Good question - honestly, I forgot. Also, there are multiple
| models that look _very_ different, so then the question
| becomes: which one do I show?
|
| In any case, those who are really curious won't have a hard
| time finding pictures. I'll include some next time :-)
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| And please walkthrough the process so I may see whether to
| get one. Well last time I read about Paton around 2000 I
| presume : https://www.dantestella.com/technical/f235plus.html
| only 6Mpix but for quick and good scan great. He scanned
| 12,000 of his.
| ktkaufman wrote:
| I don't plan on doing a walkthrough - the only reason I
| even touched a Pakon scanner was for development/testing
| purposes - but there's an abundance of information online
| that I'd encourage you to seek out if you're interested.
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(page generated 2022-09-04 23:00 UTC)