>I'm considering buying an inexpensive scanner for my system.  I already
>have an external ZIP drive and a printer using my parallel port.
>Can I purchase a parallel port scanner or will it be necessary to get a
>SCSI interface since I already have these 2 devices using the one port?
>Regards,
>Alan


Alan,

I've never had 3 parallel devices daisy chained so I don't know if it will
work or not, although it's supposed to. My guess is that you'll probably
have trouble with one or more of the devices not getting along well with the
others. Or maybe not. That's the fun thing about computers...sometimes you
never know what will happen till you try it.

You can get cheap SCSI flatbed scanners that come with a card. My sister
bought an Acer for less than $80 at a computer show and it works great, and
it's a lot faster than a parallel port model.

If you have Win 98 or the OSR2 version of Win95, and have USB ports on your
computer, you can get a USB model. I just ordered an Acer 310U for $83 and
Acer has a $20 rebate till the end of January. I don't know what the scanner
is like because I don't have it yet, but if it scans like my sister's, I'll
be happy.

The point of all this is you don't have to buy a parallel model to save
money any more. In fact, I can't think of a good reason to buy a parallel
model. My parents have a parallel scanner, and while the scans are good
quality, it is S-L-O-W!

Dennis

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