[raffraffraff]

I have an obsolete Epson scanner (an expensive one!) and an iPad from 2012. Neither are usable anymore, officially. The iPad won't install more than a handful of apps from the App store, and both Epson and Microsoft refuse to supply drivers for old scanners even though I'm sure they're little different to the ones they use for the latest model.

So I grabbed a raspberry pi, installed Apache, PHP and phpsane (heavily hacked) and now my scanner has an iPad for a control panel, and I can scan dozens of documents without turning on my computer. Then I can access the whole thing across the network (samba file shares for docs, or the scanner interface).

My SIL who was junking the scammer after upgrading to Windows 11 thinks it's a better solution than the new scanner she bought to replace it.

Such hacks shouldn't only be possible with years of tech experience though.

[cr3ative]

This is only part of your post, but VueScan is very good for older scanners on newer OSes. It’s paid software but I like it, avoids the landfill.

Nothing wrong with an older scanner after all - the tech was already impressive 10 years ago!

[prox]

I love this post , true hacker spirit!