I recently purchased a PDC-3000 and am a bit confused by how to properly hook it up to my win 98. The cable looks like my printer cable and will in fact plug into the same port. I dont want to be unhooking the printer.Should I use, or can I use an alternate port on my tower? Is there a basic user set up guide out there? Thanks Andy

-- Andy Monzingo (grannyjo@northlink.comn), October 16, 1999

Answers

UHN-UH! Square Peg, Round Hole...

That cable may plug into your printer port, but the camera is designed to work with a SCSI interface which just happens to use the same type of DB25pin connector as your printer port. It won't work on the printer port.

You need a SCSI interface card with an external DB25 connector. Try www.dirtcheapdrives.com, they have several plug-n-pray(er, play...) interface cards in the $60 range. If you can find a cheap one that was used with a scsi interfaced scanner you can use that. I've seen them very cheap at times, try Ebay or discount pc parts suppliers. Make sure you read the documentation for the camera and the scsi card, they must be set up properly or you'll have erratic transfers or possibly even damage the card or camera.

If you have a manual for the camera it should tell you what you need to know about interfacing it to your PC. If not, contact Kodak. You might find info on their web site.

Good Luck!

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), October 17, 1999.

It is sort of a toss up here. SCSI is a fast connection, but it may be a pain to install and setup the card. Another answer is to get a USB Compact Flash Card Reader. It costs about the same and its install is far easier.

dave

-- David Erskine (davide@netquest.com), October 18, 1999.