I don't have any modern virtualization experience, and my previous experience with AIX and VM was only as a user, and two decades ago at that.
Thanks for explaining. Twenty years ago, in 1993 Windows 3.11 had been shipping for about a year. (BTW, VMware didn’t ship its first product “VMware Workstation” until 1999, shortly before Windows 2000 server was released.) In 1993, not a lot of companies were designing hardware intended for virtual environments. There were few specifications for this environment at the time. So, no surprise your scanner did not work in the environment.
Since then, virtual technology has come a long way. There is currently a long list of specifications for use with virtual machines, and when the specifications are followed, it usually works.
That was years ago, and the Imacon scanner is now on indefinite loan to John Sexton, so it's not a problem I want to solve any more.
Understandably.
My difficulties serve as an object lesson that virtualization is no panacea, especially when the programs running on the virtual hardware make specific demands on that hardware that the virtualization software may not support.
Not really. While I agree that virtualization is not a panacea, it reads as if the difficulties you experienced were the result of trying use a scanner with a platform for which it was not designed.
Anywho, what I’m trying to express is that Microsoft has a stated 10 year product life cycle for their professional and enterprise platforms. For instance, Windows Server 2008 R2 was released in late 2009. Due to this, one can run current and not so current editions of Photoshop and the OSes PS runs under with virtual machines, or in some cases directly from the console through at least the year 2019. As an aside, MS almost always extends their support for their professional or enterprise platform by a year or two.
The latest edition of Windows Server is called Server 2012, and it also supports about the same OSes as Server 2008 R2. So, if one wanted to, they could probably run current PS CS6 software with new hardware through about 2023 or so.
Thanks for the link, though.
Yer welcome.