The Imager3000V is a different beast altogether, you are right it needed a dedicated Irix workstation, it also took a long long long time to scan a single image. Scanning a feature on one of those would take the better part of a year, they were designed for scanning short segments to add SFX to.

The 5000 series have a GigE port on the back that you can attach to disc storage and scan straight from the front panel, and take just over a second per frame. Still takes days to scan a feature, but it is feasible and the quality is brilliant.

There is also software available for OSX, Windows and Irix to control the scanner from the desktop, I'm hoping to find someone 'helpful' that works somewhere that has or had one of these units to get the software.