Reddit mentions of Ratoc Systems FR1SX FireWire to Ultra SCSI Converter (IEEE1394)

It isn't a drum scanner. It'll do 1128 DPI medium format, 2820 DPI 35mm. There's apparently some magic that will allow me to composite up strips of 2820 to get the whole thing at 2820 but it took the better part of 6 hours just to get the computer talking.

Aside from the monstrous Imacon beasties, there were only a handful of even-vaguely-consumer medium-format slide scanners, none of which cost less than $2500 new. Even now, your cheapest options are around a thousand dollars, and we're talking devices that were old when the Motorola RAZR came out. Your choices are pretty much the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi, Scan Multi II and Scan Multi Pro and the Nikon Super Coolscan 8000ED and 9000ED. Minolta gave up on scanners in 2003. Nikon gave up two years ago.

I went with the Dimage Scan Multi II. It's SCSI-2 and cost me $500 used in 2004 (they're now around $800-1100, depending). Its drivers were written for OS 9 and Windows 95. In order to get it to talk to modern hardware one must invest in a Satanic little chunk of shit called a Ratoc FR1SX (it stands for "FReaky One SuX") whose firmware hasn't been updated since 2004 and whose driver software hasn't been updated since 2006. In order to get it to work, one must plug it in and allow it to disable Firewire at a system level. It then allows you to restart your computer with Firewire cold-cocked, at which point it allows you to write your settings to its BIOS. You then get to power it back up and cross your fingers.

In order to actually talk to the stupid thing, however, you have to download Vuescan, which is fastidiously maintained by Ed Hamrick, [who hates people.](http://www.hamrick.com/sup.html#q "seriously. I've tried talking to the guy three times and every response I get is "you did not follow the procedures I outlined here. Try again before I will even read your email.") And although his software updates pretty much every hour on the hour, he doesn't have a "check for updates" button. Which is how I discovered that I'd been through 32 versions since trying six months ago.

I suppose I could drop 2 grand on a Coolscan8000ED. Problem being, with Nikon you have your choice between "scanning medium format" or "bulk-scanning slides." Nikon's bulk feeders don't work with their medium-format scanners, whereas this little gadget ($150 on eBay) allowed me and my wife to scan every slide her father took from 1974 to 1987 over the course of four months of near-continuous operation, which is how I am able to bring you classics like an Angora rabbit in helicopter jail.

I recognize that you didn't ask these questions, but I had to tell somebody* why, exactly, it took seven hours of fucking around with bum firewire cables, cranky BIOS burners, antagonistic support structures, anti-static gloves, cans of dust-off, massive loupes and eight binders full of ancient Velvia to bring you one shitty waterfall at 3048x2445. That's what I output out of Lightroom; I have no idea why Imgur resized it.

TL;DR - 12-year-old hardware talking to Snow Leopard, for fuck's sake. Leave Britney Alone.