Umax to charge for drivers?


Macintouch states that Umax has removed most if its scanner drivers with an offer to purchase drivers on CD-ROM. I wasn't able to confirm this as Umax' US site wasn't responding at press time.

The company's other support sites, including the UK, Netherlands, Japan and Germany, were up and drivers were still available. Their Australian site was down at press time.

X-compatible drivers

To date, Umax' Astra 6400/6450 and Powerlook scanners offer X compatibility in the form of beta drivers. English versions of these are available on their UK support site.

Regarding other models, the company says, "Currently most Umax scanners driven by VistaScan software will not run in Mac OS X natively, but will run in the Classic environment. New Astra scanners will soon be released with OS X compatible drivers."

Analysis: This question begs resolution. It's hard to imagine any sane person or company attempting to charge for drivers that are to be used with hardware they sell.

Stand alone drivers, such as VueScan and USB Overdrive, fill a distinct need -- they provide support for hardware devices that don't ship with Mac-compatible drivers -- so that's more than a bit different.