[Gimp-user] PC bitmap format?

[Jim Clark <jimc@informix.com>]

Greetings all--

I had a friend witha  good scanner scan some photos for me and save them
as bitmaps.  I did not want him to save them as jpgs, as I want to do
some work on them and wanted no compression before I got my hands on
them.  However Gimp cannot open them...it gives me an "error reading bmp
file header".  xv cannot open them either, and electric eyes does some
crazy display. file tells me they are PC bitmap format files.  I did not
know PCs have a special bitmap format.  I put them in a PC, and it opens
them fine.

Any suggestions?  Is there a way to get Gimp to open theses...short of
converting them to jpgs and then going at them? 
-- 
Thanks--
Jim Clark