Wacom owes me an OS X Driver

[tibbee]

Given Wacom has decided to rip us off, I'm hoping that someone will take the time to hack their driver to allow ADB tablet owners to leave OS 9 and enjoy all of the benefits of OS X - permanently. I hate rebooting into 9 every time I need to draw a cartoon.

PLEASE, please, please - won't someone write a driver for us? I'll pay you $50 - no prob - plus Wacom will probably try to buy you off so you'll stop working on the project. It's a win win situation - especially for me.

Unlike Apple, Wacom does not offer a superior product via its USB line. It's total BS for them to write off ADBs - they're only doing it to try to force us to buy a new tablet. The new tablets offer NOTHING that I don't get out of the one I already have. I can't believe they're trying to behind "Apple's decision" or whatnot. And Apple makes stupid decisions all the time - the iLamp for instance.

Anyway, I don't have another $500 to shell out. So in the spirit of whatever makes you happy, please band together today (cuz it's gonna be a cool party with lotsa hot chics once it starts going), and demand that someone please hack the Wacom driver for all of us who can't go out and buy new stuff just cuz it's old.

Thanks. My cartooning career is really getting messed up by this whole reboot thing - very incovenient and disruptive to the creative process. Help me. Help you. Help everyone. It's the right thing to do.

[griffman]

I believe that much of this is Apple's responsibility -- they have chosen to provide some basic ADB support in OS X, but nothing like what is present in OS 9. You can't, for example, use the System Prefs to adjust monitors that connect via ADB (some older Apple monitors did this).

Apple has clearly made the decision to move away from ADB (and SCSI and floppy disks etc). I believe Apple would have to provide a much more robust ADB implementation in order for Wacom to create an ADB driver for their older products.

I have no knolwedge as to whether Wacom is a 'good' or 'bad' company, but this one seems to fall pretty clearly in Apple's court (unless you have evidence to the contrary?).

-rob.

[tibbee]

Here's a response I recently received from Wacom regarding their refusal to support ADB Tablets:

"...only trailer park scum are currently using our ADB tablets - so we've decided that there's no reason for us to continue supporting those products. We wish you the best of luck with any tornados..."

I own a Wacom ADB tablet - so it looks like Wacom is looking to me to shoulder the responsibility of buying a new product that offers little to no advantages over the product I already own. So I would place the responsibility squarely on their very capable shoulders to continue their support for ADB tablets - as they've done in their latest OS 9 release. Otherwise someone else has to shoulder that responsibility - either I have the responsibility to buy a new Wacom tablet (that again is no better than the one I already own) or one of our legendary hacker friends has to hack the code to help us out - AND SCORE FIFTY BUCKS (from me and probably thousands of other ADB tablet owners).

I don't think we can excuse megacorporations for screwing over little people like me because they want to retire a product. Especially - AGAIN this is my fave argument here - given their new product is not superior to their old product.

PLEASE HELP! Thanks.

[griffman]

Nice letter, although I tend to doubt its authenticity. ;-)

The problem is that there are only three machines (the B&W G3/350, Beige G3 and PowerBook G3 Series) on the "OS X supported" list that shipped with an ADB port. So the potential market for Wacom ADB tablets in OS X is quite limited. I can certainly understand their position regarding an OS X ADB driver based on the numbers. But I still think it's Apple's decision not to support ADB that's behind the 'missing' ADB driver rather than anything Wacom chose to do or not do.

In any event, your product continues to function as expected in the environment for which it was designed. It works much the same way my UMAX Astra 600S SCSI scanner does -- in OS 9, using the OS 9 drivers, with no OS X driver in sight. UMAX doesn't "owe me" anything, as there was no such thing as OS X when my scanner was released. Ditto your ADB tablet.

Good luck with your driver author search; I would recommend a posting on the MacNN General forum board -- more low-level programmer types (including a high-level AppleScript wizard and a low-level Darwin kernel developer) hang out on MacNN's site. If anyone knows, somebody there would be able to point you in the right direction.

-rob.

[Edit - Corrected for the B&W 350's - thanks rusto! ;-)]

[rusto]

My B&W G3/350 has an ADB port as well, but your point is well taken: there is no market incentive for Wacom to support ADB _any more_...there just aren't enough machines out there that can run OS X and use ADB.

[tibbee]

Thanks for the tip. I understand your position - but even given your scanner problem, I still think that Wacom has a unique problem here: Their new "USB" product is not clearly superior to their old product.

Wacom is not a little 3-man shop with limited resources. They are taking this GOLDEN opportunity to bow out of supporting their products. If they can show me a new Wacom tablet that can draw FOR me, or does something NEW and exciting - then I'll allow them to take the "Apple" stance.

But they're just hoping to cash in on the new OS. Once OS X goes corporate, every designer will be crying for a new pad. Ka-CHING!

So I'm glad they can take advantage of this situation. But I'm not buying that it's too *hard* for them to continue supporting their ADB product line. I'm no programmer - but I seriously doubt their *new* tablets work any differently than their *old* tablets. Totally bogus.

Anyway, I think all companies are bad - just the whole idea of wearing a suit turns me off - but this Wacom thing is nothing but a scam.

I paid like $700 for this thing - if they want me to buy a new one, they need a better excuse than "Hey, Apple is making us screw you over." I'm not buying it.

Again, thanks very much for the tip. I'll give MacNN a shot. Just wanted to trash Wacom as thoroughly as possible for trying to pull this stunt - gotta get my money's worth somehow, no?

[edlake]

Hey Griffman!

Vuescan works with your scanner. I have the same one:D

[griffman]

Yea, I just bought it a couple days ago. I was holding out hope for a UMAX version, but after seeing that their beta just supported high-end FireWire scanners, I figured the odds of them writing one for the low-end SCSI models was nearly zilch ;-).

-rob.

[towser]

There is some hope on the Wacom ADB/OS X front. I've been happily using my old, ADB Wacom through a Griffin IMate ADB/USB adaptor on a G4 under OS 9 for a couple of years.

Under OS X, I can use the Wacom as a mouse /pointer and draw with it (without touch-sensitivity) in both Classic and OS X apps. However, Griffin Technologies is working on an OS X driver for the IMate. My hope is that once that driver is available the Wacom driver for OS X (which currently crashes at bootup) will find the tablet and work properly just as if it were a USB.

I'll post here if I have success (or not) once the driver is available. I don't remember how much the IMate cost me, but I know it was a lot less expensive that a new USB tablet.

[tibbee]

I've got the same setup - have you been able to get absolute positioning to work in OS X with the iMate X driver?

For those who don't know - you can get an iMate driver from Griffin and use your ADB tablet without a hitch in OS 9+. I just decided to get the ball rolling on the rant before I was completely screwed over by the OS X drop on Wacom's part.

When Flash 6 (or 7) rolls out for X and not for 9 - that's when I'm gonna get seriously PO'd about this prob. I've posted this same thread (as suggested) on MacNN and no one is yet to explain away Wacom's obligation.

Eventually, hi tech companies are gonna pay heed to their customers. Until then, we do what we can to shout them down I guess.

[g-diddy]

Has there been any luck getting Wacom to resolve this? I have just switched over to 10.1.2 and I'm a little miffed at the fact my costly 12x12 will not work under os 10. Could USB Overdrive provide a solution? This guy seems to know what he's doing. What really irks me is on their support page their excuse for not supporting th adb connection is in that USB is the future, yet under Windows XP,2000 etc. you can still use your antiquated D9 serial bus. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

[mscheurer]

Originally posted by g-diddy
Has there been any luck getting Wacom to resolve this? I have just switched over to 10.1.2 and I'm a little miffed at the fact my costly 12x12 will not work under os 10. Could USB Overdrive provide a solution? This guy seems to know what he's doing. What really irks me is on their support page their excuse for not supporting th adb connection is in that USB is the future, yet under Windows XP,2000 etc. you can still use your antiquated D9 serial bus. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

I was under he impression all the bigger W'coms where serial rather than ADB!?

mick

[g-diddy]

YOU ARE CORRECT! It connects through the printer or fax port (serial). This is the answer I just got from Wacom the other day:


Dear Mr. Lampman,

It is one thing for Keyspan (or other adapters) to work with "standard"
serial or ADB products. What you may not well understand is that a graphics
tablet is far from being a "standard" product. By standard, we mean that a
standard industry protocol has been developed for a class of device. For
instance, standard protocols have been developed for digital cameras,
storage, and for mice. Because tablets are unique and do not have lots of
industry players, they do not have a standard protocol.

Apple has not prioritized significant efforts for supporting non-standard
devices for legacy hardware. This is very important for you to understand.
To support serial or ADB "graphics tablets" on legacy Apple hardware for
Apple OS X would require significant effort from Apple and Wacom. Because
of priorities directed at legacy-free current technology (no ADB or Serial
ports), this will not occur.

We hope this helps you to better understand our OS X support statement. To
be candid and direct, our statement is based on factual Apple and Wacom
priorities. We appreciate that the hardware is perfectly good hardware --
but it is hardware based on an old standard that does not integrate easily
into OS X and a legacy-free environment with tablets as non-standard devices
(very unique communications protocol).

We appreciate your frustration, but the best we can do is be up front and
honest with our valued customers.

Sincerely,

Wacom Technical Support



Maria Zavala
Wacom Technical Support Technician
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> From: George Lampman
> Email: george@plasticwonderland.com
>
> Model: gd 1212 r
>
> Driver Version: none!
>
> Operating System: MacOSX
>
> Not having drivers is the problem! I noticed in your rationale for not
> going forward with supporting these tablets is that "usb is the future"
> yet you still support a serial connection on pc's. Shame on you! The least
> you could do is partner with one of the usb-serial adapter makers and
> develop some drivers for OS X. I would have to guess there are quite a few
> people who aren't willing to shell out $500 for a new tablet when the one
> they have is in fine working order! But i bet they'd be willing to spend
> $50 to get a supported adapter! I know I would.
>
> I guess I'll just have to leard to live without my tablet for now. Or
> maybe I can sell it to some PC/Windows user...... And never buy one of
> your products again!
>
> George

[vonleigh]

Hello,

Here it is as I understand it. The problem with the driver is not the 'seeing' of the device, the device can be seen by using an adapter like the imate (there are drivers available for OS X).

The issue is that Wacom does not want to port the code that handles ADB tablets, which is different than the code that handles USB tablets. Under OS 9 it works because the driver knows what to do with the tablet.

There is a huge userbase of people with ADB tablets, and this is a good way of forcing them to upgrade. I haven't been able to use my tablet without restarting in a while. Remember that Wacom is, in a way, without direct competitors, so they can do whatever they want.

The first time I insisted on this issue and got some responses from Wacom and they went as far as to say that "In the future we will give current owners of ADB tablets special pricing on upgrading to a USB tablet". Recently I wrote them about this, and have not received an answer yet.

Wacom can very well afford to support current users, that they don't want to is another thing. It's not their obligation to do so, but it'd still be the 'right' thing to do IMO.



Sincerely,
Vonleigh

[JayBee]

Wacom should put its cash where its mouth is and offer *CHEAP* swap-out ADB to USB upgrades for its loyal customers.

It is of course under no obligation to do this, but if it wants to pretend to give a damn about its customers, it should at least try a little harder.

[g-diddy]

Griffin has released an iMate SDK for OS X, which includes a pre-release of the Griffin iMate driver 1.5, "Communicating with ADB Devices" White Paper and the ADB Parser OS X Application. The company says that the tools will "open up the door for aggressive development of drivers for many popular ADB devices and peripherals under OS X. The SDK allows developers to easily support the hundreds of legacy ADB devices, including trackballs, hardware protection dongles, tablets, calibrators, and numerous specialty devices."

http://www.griffintechnology.com/imate/imate_driver.html

Could someone figure out drivers from this sdk?


If not, I like the idea of a class action lawsuit! Anyone know a good lawyer? Who where the guy's who were suing apple over OS X lack of g3 support? Maybe they need some more work....

*" Just buying a USB adapter doesn't solve anything. The tablet isn't recognized, because it doesn't have a driver. They most certainly are making you buy new hardware. They know that everyone who has an older tabet, has to upgrade to a new Wacom tablet, if they run OSX. There is no competition, so they don't need to cater to legacy products. You HAVE to buy Wacom. Overnight they created a source of revenue, by not supporting older hardware. Someone who, within the last 1-2 yrs paid $500+, now has to pay another $500+, not to upgrade limited use of a product, but just to use it at all. Now, I really don't care (I don't need one), but can anyone say Class Action? Stretching to Anti-Trust?" - www.versiontracker.com

Where can I find a resource for programers? "WE" all need to find someone willing to take up the challenge and make some drivers for our serial & adb tablets!!!