The Epson Perfection 636U scanner was a speedy beast in its day and I’m talking many moons ago. New scanner don’t scan much faster so why throw a perfectly good scanner out just cos Epson say they don’t support it anymore! We’ll you can get this beast going again, you have two options a pay and free option.
Firstly a pay option: For $39 you can get VueScan. If you are like me then you probably don’t want to throw $39 at an old hunk of scanner so the second option is FREE as in free beer an free love.
Head on over to Twain Sane and download and install the following in this order (choose you OS version – either Tiger, Leopard or SL): libusb, SANE backends, SANE Preference Pane and TWAIN SANE Interface.
Next go to System Preferences and then to the new preference pane called Sane. Scroll down and make sure “epson” and epson2″ are checked. Now go back to your system preference and simply add the scanner like you’d add a printer – (click on the little + icon on the lower left and you should see a scanner option).
Now you’re ready to scan. To scan simply hit the “Open scanner button” in this window. You can also add it to the dock as a shortcut once the scanner programs has been launched. As scanner programs go, I think it used the built in Snow Leopard interface, it’s pretty low tech but it works and it’s Free.