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![]() "John D. Farr" wrote in message ... It seems that if one owns the equipment, he has a right to the docs for it. John Would that were true! g Yeah, in days of old, equipment always came with at least a schematic, even if it was glued to the inside of the wood case. But along the way, stuff got a lot more complicated. In 1960 or so, when you bought a Tek 555 scope, you got a full manual too, a couple of inches of docs. But the pressure builds to trim costs, and by the 70's, you spend $15k for an instrument, and all you get is an Operational Manual. The two-inch thick Service Manual, with theory, parts list, diagnostic trees, and typical waveforms is $100 extra. If I want the full docs now for say, an HP-8566B or an HP-8471A, I better bring a cart. There's an Operator's Manual, a Service Manual, a Programmers Manual, and a Parts List, Spares List & Calibration Manual. And they each fill a 3" notebook binder! Actually, the days of big manuals may be gone already. New equipment now is much more disposable; you don't find a master tech troubleshooting a complex equipment. Instead, they slap on an IEEE-488 diagnostic cable, run the factory supplied calibration and diagnostic, and, if it can't be fixed in software, it likely gets declared too expensive to fix. Junk it! And if you think that's gonna mean a new golden age of surplus, you're wrong. Modern gear is more computer than anything else. There's not much you can do when you see the signal go into a proprietary chip, and nothing comes out. And the construction is now all surface-mount stuff, with trace spacing so close it looks like a Moiré pattern. I defy you to probe any ONE trace. OK, so maybe you like using a microscope. g Ed WB6WSN |
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