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+.TH sane\-abaton 5 "11 Jul 2008" "@PACKAGEVERSION@" "SANE Scanner Access Now Easy"
+.IX sane\-abaton
+.SH NAME
+sane\-abaton \- SANE backend for Abaton flatbed scanners
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+The
+.B sane\-abaton
+library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend that
+provides access to Abaton flatbed scanners. At present, only the Scan
+300/GS (8bit, 256 levels of gray) is fully supported, due to the
+absence of programming information.  The Scan 300/S (black and white)
+is recognized, but support for it is untested.
+.PP
+If you own a Abaton scanner other than the ones listed above that
+works with this backend, or if you own an Abaton scanner that does not
+work with this backend, please contact
+.IR sane\-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
+with the model number, so that arrangements can be made to include
+support for it. Have a look at http://www.sane\-project.org/mailing\-lists.html
+concerning subscription to sane\-devel.
+.PP
+Abaton is out of business, and these scanners are not supported by
+Everex (the parent company of Abaton), nor is there any programming
+information to be found.  This driver is therefore based on
+information obtained by running Abaton's scanning desk accessory under
+MacsBug and tracing the MacOS SCSI Manager calls it made during image
+acquisition.
+.PP
+However, the protocol is very similar to, though not compatible with,
+the one used by the Apple scanners, therefore, if this backend is ever
+extended to support the other Abaton models (they also made a color
+flatbed scanner), it may be possible to fill in some "missing pieces"
+from the (quite detailed) Apple scanner documentation.
+
+.SH "DEVICE NAMES"
+This backend expects device names of the form:
+.PP
+.RS
+.I special
+.RE
+.PP
+Where
+.I special
+is the path-name for the special device that corresponds to a SCSI
+scanner. For SCSI scanners, the special device name must be a generic
+SCSI device or a symlink to such a device.  Under Linux, such a device
+name takes a format such as
+.I /dev/sga
+or
+.IR /dev/sg0 ,
+for example.  See sane\-scsi(5) for details.
+.SH CONFIGURATION
+The contents of the
+.I abaton.conf
+file is a list of device names that correspond to Abaton scanners.
+Empty lines and lines starting with a hash mark (#) are ignored.  See
+sane\-scsi(5) on details of what constitutes a valid device name.
+
+.SH FILES
+.TP
+.I @CONFIGDIR@/abaton.conf
+The backend configuration file (see also description of
+.B SANE_CONFIG_DIR
+below).
+.TP
+.I @LIBDIR@/libsane\-abaton.a
+The static library implementing this backend.
+.TP
+.I @LIBDIR@/libsane\-abaton.so
+The shared library implementing this backend (present on systems that
+support dynamic loading).
+.SH ENVIRONMENT
+.TP
+.B SANE_CONFIG_DIR
+This environment variable specifies the list of directories that may
+contain the configuration file.  Under UNIX, the directories are
+separated by a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated by a
+semi-colon (`;').  If this variable is not set, the configuration file
+is searched in two default directories: first, the current working
+directory (".") and then in @CONFIGDIR@.  If the value of the
+environment variable ends with the directory separator character, then
+the default directories are searched after the explicitly specified
+directories.  For example, setting
+.B SANE_CONFIG_DIR
+to "/tmp/config:" would result in directories "tmp/config", ".", and
+"@CONFIGDIR@" being searched (in this order).
+.TP
+.B SANE_DEBUG_ABATON
+If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this
+environment variable controls the debug level for this backend.  E.g.,
+a value of 255 requests all debug output to be printed.  Smaller
+levels reduce verbosity.
+
+.SH BUGS
+There are a few known ones, and definitely some unknown ones.
+.TP
+.B Scan area miscalculations
+For the sake of programmer efficiency, this backend handles all
+measurements in millimetres, and floors (rather than rounds) values to
+avoid possible damage to the scanner mechanism.  Therefore, it may not
+be possible to scan to the extreme right or bottom edges of the page.
+.TP
+.B Cancelling the scan
+This might not work correctly, or it might abort the frontend.  The
+former is more likely than the latter.
+.PP
+If you have found something that you think is a bug, please attempt to
+recreate it with the SANE_DEBUG_ABATON environment variable set to
+255, and send a report detailing the conditions surrounding the bug to
+.IR sane\-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org .
+
+.SH TODO
+.TP
+.B Implement non-blocking support
+.TP
+.B Finish reverse-engineering the MacOS driver
+This will allow me to add support for other models with reasonable
+confidence that it will work, as well as to fully exploit the
+information returned by the INQUIRY command.
+
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+sane(7), sane\-scsi(5), scanimage(1)
+
+.SH AUTHOR
+The sane\-abaton backend was partially written by David Huggins-Daines,
+based on the sane\-apple backend by Milon Firikis.