Development of printer driver (how hard)?

[vgjunkie at gmail.com]

I work with a company who produces CR-80 ID card printers. They currently only have a windows driver and I was looking into moving my ID system over to linux.

The problem I run into is the printing part, as there is no known driver to use for linux. The printer is a SCSI based one and I have talked to the manufacturer to see what it would take to develop a linux driver.

The company that produces the driver quoted $50K for a driver which is well out of my budget.

Has anybody ever tried to develop a linux driver for these CR-80 cards?
How difficult is it to develop a driver based on the type of printer (SCSI) to produce 2 sided (front and back) ID cards?

Sorry if this is not the correct forum for this type of question.

Thanks
JW