I'm running a BH6 here for my desktop. (1537 MHz Celeron at the
moment, don't ask...) What can I say, why replace old technology if it
still works.
Now I've gotten a hold of an ancient scanner, a SPOT Technology
Fototak-12, with a proprietary interface card, designated SF-600CC. It
came with a CDrom, but beyond that, documentation on this thing is
unavailable, the company having gone bankrupt in 1998. Their website
(www.spotinc.com) has been held by one domain squatter after another
since about mid-'99; old versions come up in archive.org, but not much
info is forthcoming.
I tried to install the card. Machine will not boot, gave me "BIOS ROM
CHECKSUM ERROR" and starts looking for the floppy drive, I have no
idea what it expected to find there but I haven't got any bootable
floppies at the moment so I just shut it down and pulled the card.
When it came back up, the CMOS was also pooched, so it reverted to
defaults and I had to reset everything.
There are jumpers on the card which change the memory address. Default
is D0000. Options are E8000, E0000, D8000, C8000. All the above give
me the same error, except C8000 with which the machine fails to even
turn on.
I can't find too many references to this on the net, except one post
from someone back in 2003 having this same problem, and nobody had a
solution for him (beyond "You need to throw out that card as a lot of
similar problems have been reported on all sorts of boards", which
isn't very helpful).
There don't seem to be any settings in the BIOS for reserving memory
for individual cards, or at least I can't find any. All I can find
regarding individual memory addresses has to do with shadowing, which
is disabled for all but video memory.
Is there anyone out there who both still remembers the BH6, and also
knows how to set it to work with this card?
(I probably still have my old Mtech M406 486DX5/133 somewhere, but it
doesn't make much sense to me to rebuild an entire computer, with an
early-90's ma inboard, just to use a 10-year-old scanner with. I'd
rather spend a few hundred dollars and get a more modern scanner if I
had to, but since I already have this, it would be nice if I could get
it working.)
In article <8r2jl4ppelsuf9epba8nehmevoh3v6jkki@4ax.com>,
druggist@pobox.c0m says...
> I'm running a BH6 here for my desktop. (1537 MHz Celeron at the
> moment, don't ask...) What can I say, why replace old technology if it
> still works.
>
> Now I've gotten a hold of an ancient scanner, a SPOT Technology
> Fototak-12, with a proprietary interface card, designated SF-600CC. It
> came with a CDrom, but beyond that, documentation on this thing is
> unavailable, the company having gone bankrupt in 1998. Their website
> (www.spotinc.com) has been held by one domain squatter after another
> since about mid-'99; old versions come up in archive.org, but not much
> info is forthcoming.
>
> I tried to install the card. Machine will not boot, gave me "BIOS ROM
> CHECKSUM ERROR" and starts looking for the floppy drive, I have no
> idea what it expected to find there but I haven't got any bootable
> floppies at the moment so I just shut it down and pulled the card.
> When it came back up, the CMOS was also pooched, so it reverted to
> defaults and I had to reset everything.
>
> There are jumpers on the card which change the memory address. Default
> is D0000. Options are E8000, E0000, D8000, C8000. All the above give
> me the same error, except C8000 with which the machine fails to even
> turn on.
>
> I can't find too many references to this on the net, except one post
> from someone back in 2003 having this same problem, and nobody had a
> solution for him (beyond "You need to throw out that card as a lot of
> similar problems have been reported on all sorts of boards", which
> isn't very helpful).
>
> There don't seem to be any settings in the BIOS for reserving memory
> for individual cards, or at least I can't find any. All I can find
> regarding individual memory addresses has to do with shadowing, which
> is disabled for all but video memory.
>
> Is there anyone out there who both still remembers the BH6, and also
> knows how to set it to work with this card?
>
> (I probably still have my old Mtech M406 486DX5/133 somewhere, but it
> doesn't make much sense to me to rebuild an entire computer, with an
> early-90's ma inboard, just to use a 10-year-old scanner with. I'd
> rather spend a few hundred dollars and get a more modern scanner if I
> had to, but since I already have this, it would be nice if I could get
> it working.)
>
> Thanks, all.
>
> Shalom
>
"Shalom Septimus" <druggist@pobox.c0m> wrote in message news:8r2jl4ppelsuf9epba8nehmevoh3v6jkki@4ax.com...
> I'm running a BH6 here for my desktop. (1537 MHz Celeron at the
> moment, don't ask...) What can I say, why replace old technology if it
> still works.
>
> Now I've gotten a hold of an ancient scanner, a SPOT Technology
> Fototak-12, with a proprietary interface card, designated SF-600CC. It
> came with a CDrom, but beyond that, documentation on this thing is
> unavailable, the company having gone bankrupt in 1998. Their website
> (www.spotinc.com) has been held by one domain squatter after another
> since about mid-'99; old versions come up in archive.org, but not much
> info is forthcoming.
>
> I tried to install the card. Machine will not boot, gave me "BIOS ROM
> CHECKSUM ERROR" and starts looking for the floppy drive, I have no
> idea what it expected to find there but I haven't got any bootable
> floppies at the moment so I just shut it down and pulled the card.
> When it came back up, the CMOS was also pooched, so it reverted to
> defaults and I had to reset everything.
>
> There are jumpers on the card which change the memory address. Default
> is D0000. Options are E8000, E0000, D8000, C8000. All the above give
> me the same error, except C8000 with which the machine fails to even
> turn on.
>
> I can't find too many references to this on the net, except one post
> from someone back in 2003 having this same problem, and nobody had a
> solution for him (beyond "You need to throw out that card as a lot of
> similar problems have been reported on all sorts of boards", which
> isn't very helpful).
>
> There don't seem to be any settings in the BIOS for reserving memory
> for individual cards, or at least I can't find any. All I can find
> regarding individual memory addresses has to do with shadowing, which
> is disabled for all but video memory.
>
> Is there anyone out there who both still remembers the BH6, and also
> knows how to set it to work with this card?
>
> (I probably still have my old Mtech M406 486DX5/133 somewhere, but it
> doesn't make much sense to me to rebuild an entire computer, with an
> early-90's ma inboard, just to use a 10-year-old scanner with. I'd
> rather spend a few hundred dollars and get a more modern scanner if I
> had to, but since I already have this, it would be nice if I could get
> it working.)
>
> Thanks, all.
>
> Shalom
It would be up to the motherboard and card manufacturers to resolve
this bios conflict, and there's zero chance of that happening today.
You can try turning off all bios shadowing options (video bios at C000,
system bios at E000 etc) on the BH6, but it may not help.
Problem is, none of those do what I need. I already have an all-in-one
inkjet with a reasonably good photo scanner in it anyway, but it
doesn't do transparencies. This thing is a 4x6" transparency scanner,
and I shoot negatives from 120 size all the way up to 3-1/2" x 5-1/2"
on occasion, so neither the flatbed image scanners or the dedicated
35mm neg scanners aren't going to be useful. Pretty much all I can
find that gives a good scan from large format negs is $500 and up, and
my wife would be quite annoyed with me if I bought one of them.
In article <i71ml4ttm7nq0vrvia8q8cbi38jkt2so4o@4ax.com>,
druggist@pobox.c0m says...
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:57:36 -0800, Bill
> <spamtrap@tinlc.lumbercartel.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Save yourself some grief. Try any of these.
> >
> > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...?Submit=ENE&N=
> >2010270044%204026&name=%2450%20-%20%2475
>
> Problem is, none of those do what I need. I already have an all-in-one
> inkjet with a reasonably good photo scanner in it anyway, but it
> doesn't do transparencies. This thing is a 4x6" transparency scanner,
> and I shoot negatives from 120 size all the way up to 3-1/2" x 5-1/2"
> on occasion, so neither the flatbed image scanners or the dedicated
> 35mm neg scanners aren't going to be useful.
Shame you didn't mention that in the first place. Next time think of
putting information like that in your post. The answers you get may
be more applicable to your situation.
> Pretty much all I can
> find that gives a good scan from large format negs is $500 and up, and
> my wife would be quite annoyed with me if I bought one of them.
>
> Shalom
>
So it it boils down to getting the original scanner working, which
will probably not happen, give up scanning large format negs, or live
with an annoyed wife.
You might search for a used scanner that fits your needs that costs
less than new.
Bill
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BH6 and ISA scanner interface card SF-600CC 
Linear Mode
