HA, I have the opposite problem. I've been keeping this old scanner around waiting for either a Win98 machine or drivers to run it on XP. It's a Visioneer 6100B and though it was not expensive, it's one of the best scanners I've seen.

Might not be so hot on the criteria you used in testing, but it has plenty of depth. What I mean is that something doesn't have to be flat. I've scanned guns, car parts, people's faces etc. There is something about it's light beam I think. It must be almost as coherent as a laser for something literally 4" away to still be in focus. This of course comes in handy when you scan a book without cutting out the pages or breaking the binder.

About the OCR software, can I just use any propgram even though I don't have the hardware it came with ? Reason I ask is I have some already scannned images I would like to convert. They're 800 pixels wide because I wanted them readable in an internet browser (though I am pretty sure I have higher resolution copies around somewhere). I could simply string them together by writing a few simple lines of HTML. Here's an example of one:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/29948706/page02.jpg

Never did write that page..... Anyway, the only OCR software I have right now came with the Visioneer and it requires MAX files. Irfanview IIRC reported that these are TIF files "misnamed". I imagine there is something different about the compression, which makes me wonder if reconverting them will work. I mean convert from JPG to TIF and then rename to MAX.

That assumes the OCR software will even install in XP.

As far as your USB situation, I remember my 98SE required software to recognize those thumbdrives. I got it from Lexar's website. This makes me wonder if the machine is reading your device correctly, can you try it in a newer PC just to see if you get the same results ? What's more, I wonder if you can find an SD card reader that is compatible with Win98. It seems they certainly do not want you using 98 anymore. (BTW you do know about olderversion.com right ?)

Believe me, I was dragged kicking and screaming into XP. Know why I got XP ? I couldn't get 98SE to work with my router. Grrrr.

J