I purchased the Mustek 600 CP Flatbed Scanner about two years ago to replace an old Relysis SCSI scanner I purchased in 1993 (over $700 at the time!).

I really enjoyed this scanner, and it worked well with Windows-98. It operates through a parallel port interface, which is a bit problematic since most "legacy" computers only ship with one parallel port. I added a PCI card to add a second parallel port (LPT2) to my system so that I could continue to use my primary parallel port (LPT1) for my laser printer.

The Mustek 600 scanner is a fast, one-pass 30-bit color scanner with a 300 x 600 optical resolution and an interpolated resolution (via software) of 9600 x 9600 pixels. I found the scanner to be more than adequate for scanning color photos for web use, and was quite good when used for document scanning.

The scanner shopped with a package of "limited feature" image editing and optical character recognition (OCR) software titles: Photo Express SE and TextBridge Pro OCR. I did not use the Photo Express SE software, as it was not as powerful as my normal image editing software program of choice: Picture Publisher 7. TextBridge Pro OCR was actually quite powerful and worked very well with type-written documents. For instance, I was able to scan lengthy legal documents (60+ pages) and import them virtually error free into standard Windows editing programs (Notepad, Write, and Word).


Some features that I enjoyed:

1) TWAIN compliant, so it was recognized by most image editing software programs.
2) Small size: 11-inches wide, 16-inches long, and 2¾-inches in height. About half the size of my old Relysis scanner.
3) Good OCR software (TextBridge Pro) included with purchase.
4) Fast, single pass scanning (my old scanner required three-passes [Red, Green, Blue] to fully capture a color image).


There are three main reasons why I am junking this scanner and why I do not recommend its purchase.

1) Although this is a plug-and-play device, it is not Windows-2000 capable. I tried installing updated drivers supplied by Mustek for Win2K, but the scanner does not function properly.

2) This is a parallel-port interface device. That means that a special bi-directional parallel cable is required to operate this scanner, and it may mean, depending upon your system, that you'll need to swap parallel port connections with your printer.

3) Most new USB scanners are plug-and-play ready with Windows-98, Windows ME and Windows 2000. They can easily be added by plugging into a USB hub and are easily swapped for use on other computer systems.

4) No support exists for this scanner at the Mustek site.



Price and Availability
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I originally purchased this scanner about two years ago at Fry's Electronics in Anaheim, California. Price at the time was about $40 -- a great deal.



Recommendations
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Pass on buying this old scanner... which may only be available as a surplus or used item. The Mustek 600 scanner was a great buy two years ago, but the new USB-port scanners are more versatile and compatible with modern Operating Systems.


Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 40.00
Interface: Parallel