Absolutely correct. The TWAIN standard for scanners is (as far as I can tell) an API for scan-capable apps to communicate with device-specific scanner software. I don't think there is any such thing as a generic API for scanners the way there is (via PostScript and PCL) for printers.
As such, you are often at the mercy of your scanner manufacturer for software support. But, as Jeremy Leik wrote, there are sometimes options. VueScan is a (commercial for Mac and Windows) software package that supports an extremely large number of otherwise-unsupported scanners. Another package that I use is SilverFast - it's a pro/semi-pro package so it costs a bit more, but it also supports a lot of otherwise unsupported scanners (but not nearly as much as VueScan). Unfortunately, I don't know of any good open source scanner software, which can be incredibly frustrating if you want to scan from a computer running Linux.
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Back in the old days, when my hard drive was small enough to fit on a DAT tape, I manually made backups using tar.
Today, I manually make backups to a USB hard drive (which is unmounted and disconnected when not in-use) using rsync.
Absolutely correct. The TWAIN standard for scanners is (as far as I can tell) an API for scan-capable apps to communicate with device-specific scanner software. I don't think there is any such thing as a generic API for scanners the way there is (via PostScript and PCL) for printers.
As such, you are often at the mercy of your scanner manufacturer for software support. But, as Jeremy Leik wrote, there are sometimes options. VueScan is a (commercial for Mac and Windows) software package that supports an extremely large number of otherwise-unsupported scanners. Another package that I use is SilverFast - it's a pro/semi-pro package so it costs a bit more, but it also supports a lot of otherwise unsupported scanners (but not nearly as much as VueScan). Unfortunately, I don't know of any good open source scanner software, which can be incredibly frustrating if you want to scan from a computer running Linux.