TWAIN
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| Original author(s) | TWAIN Working Group |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | TWAIN Working Group |
| Initial release | February 1992 |
| Stable release |
2.3 / 21 November 2013
|
| Operating system | Linux, OS X, Microsoft Windows |
| Platform | x86, x86-64, PowerPC |
| Standard(s) | TWAIN |
| Type | Application programming interface |
| License | LGPL (Data Source Manager only) |
| Website | www |
TWAIN is an applications programming interface (API) and that regulates communication between software and digital imaging devices, such as image scanners and digital cameras.
TWAIN is not a hardware-level protocol; it requires a driver called Data Source for each device.
The design of TWAIN began in January 1991. The TWAIN group originally launched in 1992 by several members of the imaging industry, with the intention of standardizing communication between image handling software and hardware. Review of the original TWAIN Developer’s Toolkit occurred from April, 1991 through January, 1992.
The word TWAIN is not officially an acronym, but it is a backronym. The official website notes that "the word TWAIN is from Kipling's The Ballad of East and West — '...and never the twain shall meet...' — reflecting the difficulty, at the time, of connecting scanners and personal computers. It was up-cased to TWAIN to make it more distinctive. This led people to believe it was an acronym, and then to a contest to come up with an expansion. None was selected, but the entry Technology Without an Interesting Name continues to haunt the standard." For example, the Encyclopedia of Information Technology lists "Technology Without an Interesting Name" as the official meaning of TWAIN.
Objectives of the TWAIN Working Group and standard include:
TWAIN provides support for:
Today the TWAIN standard, including the specification, data source manager and sample code, are maintained by the not-for-profit organization TWAIN Working Group.
Board and associate members of the TWAIN Working Group include:
This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
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