Well, I broke down and bought a CanoScan LIDE 700F for about $115. I could have gotten one much cheaper, but this one has a very nice feature that allows me to scan 35 mm negatives. It has a plastic film-holding rig you place on the scanner bed, and then a little box that appears to be a light, that you place directly on the film. Very simple, and very effective. The scanner itself is very simple and it's about an inch thick, so it stores very nicely beside my computer. It takes its power from a USB cable, so there's no power adapter to take up space. It works almost exactly like the 32-bit scanner that I like so much - and I've been so frustrated trying to get scans from my HP 8500 all-in-one.

HP used to make terrific, reliable equipment - but that was long ago.

-Joe-