UMAX Technologies (), originally known as UMAX Computer Corporation, is a manufacturer of computer products, including
scanners,
mice
A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
, and
flash drive
A flash drive is a portable computer drive that uses flash memory. Flash drives are the larger memory modules consisting of a number of flash chips. A flash chip is used to read the contents of a single cell, but it can write entire block of cell ...
s, based in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. The company also uses the Yamada and Vaova brand names.
[UMAX's website in the UK](_blank)
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History
UMAX was formerly a maker of Apple Macintosh clones, using the ''SuperMac'' brand name outside of Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Their models included the SuperMac S900/S910, J700, C500 and C500e/i/LT, C600e/v/LT/x and Aegis 200. The C500 was marketed as the Apus 2000 in Europe. After Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
returned to Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
as the new CEO, he revoked all of the clone producers' licenses to produce Mac clones except for UMAX, due to their sub-US$1,000 low-end offerings, a market in which Apple was not strong, and UMAX's stated desire to expand the Macintosh platform's presence in East Asian markets. UMAX's license for Mac OS 8 expired in July 1998. UMAX could not remain profitable selling only these systems, however; it briefly made IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...
computers in the mid-1990s, but since then UMAX has mainly concentrated on manufacturing scanners.
In 1995, UMAX was the leading Taiwanese scanner maker, with a market share of 13% second worldwide behind Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
(HP). This continued to be the case throughout 1996. According to ''PC Data'' figures, in 1997 UMAX briefly overtook HP in some monthly sales. According to the same source however, by 1999 UMAX was being "eclipsed" by HP whose scanner market share doubled that year from 13% to 26%. In some markets with high price-sensitivity like India for example, UMAX continued to have a slight lead on HP throughout 1999-2000 with the two companies claiming 44% and 40%, respectively, of the scanner sales in this country; 85% of which were for products costing less than 10,000 Rs.) By 2003, HP and Canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western can ...
were dominating the world's flatbed scanner market, "accounting for a combined unit market share of 81 per cent."
In 2002 UMAX started to charge its US customers for driver upgrades for its scanners—a practice that soon proved controversial.
Until their exit from the desktop scanner marked in 2002, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG () is a German precision mechanical engineering company with registered offices in Heidelberg (Baden-Württemberg) and headquarters in Wiesloch/Walldorf (Baden-Württemberg). The company offers products and service ...
used UMAX as its OEM
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
for these products.
UMAX also made a 1.3 megapixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
called the AstraPix 490. It is capable of recording video clips, functioning as a webcam and can even be used to listen to music encoded in MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format.
Scanners
* Astra 610S and 1200S; these were cloned and/or repackaged (OEM'd) for many other manufacturers
* Astra 1220P
* Astra 2000U
* Astra 2100U
* Astra 2400S, NCR 53C80 SCSI/Intel 8031 based 600x1200dpi
* Astra 3450
* Astra 4900
* Astra 4950
* Astra 5600
* Astra 6700
* AstraSlim
* AstraSlim SE
* PowerLook 1000
* PowerLook 1120
* PowerLook 2100XL
* PowerLook 180
* PowerLook 270
Scanner software
UMAX offers some semi-free (in the sense that some versions/updates cost money and some do not) basic scanner software for Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
(up to Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
) and Mac OS
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...
:
* VistaScan is their basic TWAIN
Twain may refer to:
People
* Mark Twain, pen name of American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910)
* Norman Twain (1930–2016), American film producer
* Shania Twain (born 1965), Canadian singer-songwriter
Places
* Twain, California, a ...
scanner module, which also contains Windows Image Acquisition Windows Image Acquisition (WIA; sometimes also called Windows Imaging Architecture) is a proprietary Microsoft driver model and application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows Me and later Windows operating systems that enables graphic ...
(WIA) drivers in its newer versions. It features a simpler interface compared to MagicScan. However, not all versions work with all products. In general, VistaScan versions after 3.55 no longer support SCSI
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...
scanners. The German site of UMAX has a (bilingual) webpage/wizard that helps the user select the proper version for their scanner.
* MagicScan is the higher-end version of VistaScan, with a user interface aimed at more experienced users; it did not ship with the cheaper scanners (Astra, etc.) but only with the higher-end (PowerLook) scanners. It does however work with many of the cheaper UMAX scanners. Versions after 4.71 no longer ship with SCSI drivers.
Additionally, UMAX offers more sophisticated (typically non-free) third-party photo scanning/correction software:
* binuscan PhotoPerfect, which is a standalone application and has a plug-in for MagicScan; PhotoPerfect is also bundled with high-end scanners and sold separately for others
* SilverFast
SilverFast is the name of a family of software for image scanning and processing, including photos, documents and slides, developed by LaserSoft Imaging.
There are also other applications for image processing using digital cameras or printers and ...
is compatible with many UMAX scanner (especially the SCSI ones); its entry-level (SE) version is shipped with some newer UMAX scanners. and offered separately for others
For optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
, some UMAX scanners came bundled with OmniPage
OmniPage is an optical character recognition (OCR) application available from Kofax Incorporated.
OmniPage was one of the first OCR programs to run on personal computers.
It was developed in the late 1980s and sold by Caere Corporation, a company ...
and others with ABBYY FineReader.
The Unix SANE software generally supports well the UMAX SCSI scanners, with varying degrees of support for the other ones (USB, FireWire
IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...
, parallel
Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Computing
* Parallel algorithm
* Parallel computing
* Parallel metaheuristic
* Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel
* Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of IBM ...
).
See also
* List of companies of Taiwan
Taiwan maintains a stable industrial economy as a result of economic growth and industrialization during the late 20th century, being dubbed as one of the Four Asian Tigers along with Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. It is a member of both ...
References
External links
{{Commons category, UMAX
UMAX Technologies
The Unofficial SuperMac Support Site
(at EveryMac.com)
Technology companies established in 1987
Electronics companies established in 1987
Manufacturing companies established in 1987
1987 establishments in Taiwan
Companies based in Taipei
Computer hardware companies
Computer memory companies
Computer peripheral companies
Electronics companies of Taiwan
Taiwanese brands
Macintosh clones