[sane-devel] Backend for HP G4050 USB scanner

[arie.kazachin at 013net.net]

Hello,

I've just joined this mailing list after realizing (too late) that the
new scanner (HP G4050) I bought with my new PC doesn't have LINUX 
drivers. Somehow, during the hardware research before the purchase
I assumed that such a large company as HP will write drivers
for all of its scanners for such a widely used OS as LINUX and only 
after I bought it and started searching for backend I discovered that
HP decided to invest in the "All In One" line of "conglomerates"
that do everything and not always in a best way at the expense of
high quality scanners. After learning that there are no LINUX drivers
for G4050 (I hope to be wrong but so far I had no evidence for the
contrary) I started contemplating the idea of writing a backend
for this scanner. I'm not a professional C/C++ programmer (I'm a
VLSI engineer), from time to time I had to touch some C code at work
to make some changes (like altering "binutils" assembler to add
a new CPU) or to write simple BMP-filtering programs at home but I
never wrote something as complicated as a driver.

Is it totally insane to contemplate writing a backend without being
C/C++ professional?

Even before the issue of how to write a driver there is an issue of:
what should it do? Is there any document describing the "programming 
model" of G4050 scanner?

Are there any docs that help novices to write backend drivers?

Has anyone attempted to write a backend for that scanner?

TIA,
Arie.