[Hp3300backend-devel] update

[Bertrik S. <be...@zo...>]

Hi all,

Here's another update on recent events and plans for the future.

1) new developers
Two more developers are now part of the hp3300backend project:
Jean Goffinet helped with support for the Agfa Snapscan Touch.
It turns out now that the Agfa Snapscan Touch is very similar
to the HP3300c, except that the scanner head is mounted the
other way around (this makes the software actually easier).
Marcin Cieslak helped with splitting up the various transfer
methods (libusb, scanner kernel module, libieee1284 etc.),
which should make it easier to port stuff to other platforms
among other things.

2) memory corruption bug
I just found quite a serious bug in the current sources. It is
related to how data is juggled around when compensating for the
fact that the red green and blue layers of an image are slightly
offset vertically. This bug seems to be quite old and may explain
some mysterious segfaults people experienced earlier.
Anyway, it's fixed now in the CVS version.

3) contributors
A lot of people have helped since the start of the project by
sending USB snoopy logs, debugging, reporting bugs, sending fixes
or code suggestions. Until now I have gladly accepted this help,
but without paying much attention to giving due credit.
I'll make a list of all who made a significant contribution and
start paying more attention to this in the future.

4) renaming source files
I plan to rename everything with 'hp3300c' in it to 'niash',
since the code is getting less hp3300c-specific with every release.
So for example, the file hp3300c.c may be renamed to niash_core.c
or something like that. And hp3300c_xfer.c to niash_xfer.c.
Also I plan to merge the hp3400.c|h file with the other hp3300c
core code.

5) HP5400/HP5470 and niash00033
It turns out that the HP5400 and HP5470 contain a niash00033 chip.
I did a quick analysis of some USB snoopy logs taken when the
scanner was plugged in. The USB protocol is completely different
from the one used by the HP3300/3400/4300 and I think it's
unlikely that the niash00033 will be supported by out backend.

That's all for now,

All the best
Bertrik Sikken