On 21/10/2015 13:16, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

N_Cook wrote:

On 20/10/2015 23:56, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

N_Cook wrote:

On 20/10/2015 12:52, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Archive.org took the remaining manuals when Manualsplus.com
stopped selling obscure manuals. They took about 25,000 manuals
that will be scanned, and put online for free. I haven't seen a
timetable, or if there iss even a completed inventory of what
they have, but I would check their site from time to time to see
if they have it.

They have added a lot of old semiconductor data books. If you are
going to download a lot of them, use bit torrent or other software
to reduce the loading on their servers. There is also an area with
a lot of old electronics and computer magazines you can read online,
or download.

https://archive.org/details/electronicsmanuals?&sort=-downloads&page=6


Are you aware of a widget/app to cross-compare an index of paper manuals
against the main www resources, to determine what needs scanning in and
uploading somewhere , so I can safely dump the paper-based repeats ?


There are currently too many separate archives of manuals, so hang on to
the paper manuals for now. It may take another decade for the volunteers
to scan and process all of those manuals. If you don't want, or need
them, put them on Ebay. Collectors like original manuals to go along
with equipment that is to go into a museum.

BTW, Archive.com has a collection of the old GE Ham News publications:
https://archive.org/details/GEHamNewsVol18No1

Also, issues of 73 magazine:
https://archive.org/details/73-magazine


If only there was indexes constructed of all the main repositries,
rather than search boxes, that would be a great help.
Another factor is scanned-in incomplete manuals, not mentioned on the
site. I downloaded one of elektrotanya last week that was a revision
manual and only one small part of the schematic


I never thought very much about that elektrotanya website. Very low
grade scans, and often at such a low DPI that they are hard or
impossible to read. Was it listed as a revision? That should have told
you that it would be a waste of time, without the full manual.

Archive.org has a staff of volunteers to scan the material properly.
They work with both public and private libraries, as well as companies
who want to put their old documents into the public domain. I see that
they have added the M.I.T. library, but I didn't check to see if the
RadLab series of books are included. They cover early electronics, as
the field developed during W.W.II.. They were classified, an controlled
documents for a long time.


I wonder if there is a UK document-scanning feed into the archive.org?
The British Library never bothered with data manuals, Science
Museum/Wroughton library has some but not much.
My local university library literally dumped all their electronic data
manuals from the 1960s/70s in a skip for landfill , without prior
checking if they were available online anywhere.