Abstract: A scanner is provided with a disk drive emulator and is attached to a general purpose computer via a SCSI bus. The disk drive emulator provides signals such that the general purpose computer identifies the scanner as a disk drive. Applications running on the general purpose computer direct operation of the scanner via standard operating system disk drive commands. To facilitate the transfer of commands to the scanner, a scanner parameters setup program, also known as an Application Program Interface (API), is provided that is resident on the scanner and accessible to the general purpose computer via the disk drive emulator. When executed, the scanner parameters setup program provides a graphically oriented menu allowing a user to enter parameters such as resolution, brightness, contrast, etc. Once entered, the parameters are saved to the scanner via a File Save command.