# This scanner kicks ass!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-scanner-kicks-ass/258069
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 3, 2004, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-scanner-kicks-ass/258069 "2004-08-03T02:20:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2004, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-scanner-kicks-ass/258069/1 "2004-08-03T02:20:02Z")
I was horsing around in a thrift this afternoon and ran across a kind of unusual looking scanner. It was about half again thicker than most flatbed scanners and weighed about 15 lbs! It said Epson Expression 636 on the front. I looked on the back and noticed it was a parallel + SCSI combo interface. Normally I would not have given it a second thought, I have perfectly fine old Scanmaker E3, and besides I use a digital camera more these days than a flat bed.
But something about this scanner and the bulletproof way it was constructed said “I was very, very expensive back in the day.”
So, I paid five dollars for it and took it home. [I looked it up online and apparently this thing once went for around $ 800., and is a quasi-professional scanner.](http://ecoustics.audioreview.com/pscComputingReview/Hardware/Scanners/Expression,636/PRD_255446_5642crx.aspx#reviews) I cleaned it up, hooked it up, downloaded the Epson TWAIN drivers and XP recognized and installed it automatically. I threw some 3x5 Photos on the scanner and began to use it.
I discovered it’s insanely fast even at high resolutions. The perfection and spot on accuracy of scanned colors is well beyond any scanner I have owned previously. It’s not brand new, but it is one awesome piece of hardware. The most interesting thing is that I expected it to be slow and clunky because it’s a few years old, but it’s a lot faster and smoother than the $ 100- $200 USB scanners I have used, and the results are far better even though the newer scanners have theoretically higher resolution.
[Here’s the pdf file on it.](http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/exp636/exp636pg.pdf)
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### Author:  [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2004, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-scanner-kicks-ass/258069/2 "2004-08-03T12:56:12Z")
We have (had–one just died, unfortunately), a few old HP Scanjet 4c’s that are a bit like that. They really don’t make them like they used to.
I mostly hate every new scanner I’ve tried since then. I dread the day our last 4c finally kicks the bucket because no matter what we buy to replace it, it’ll probably suck.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2004, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-scanner-kicks-ass/258069/3 "2004-08-03T13:09:32Z")
Is it a 3-pass (r, g, b) scanner?
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-scanner-kicks-ass/258069/4 "2004-08-03T17:40:57Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> Is it a 3-pass (r, g, b) scanner?
The [pdf specs doc](http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/exp636/exp636pg.pdf) indicates both 3 pass RGB and single pass options,