@TerraHertz: Did it occur to you that they are going out of business because nobody wants the manuals?Your argument is invalid, and merely demonstrates that *you* don't want them. How many people buy ebay'd old gear? Did you actually look at ManualsPlus prices?
I'm sure there will be couple of manuals in the collection which are sought after by people trying to maintain old gear but they really don't want to spend $75 for a manual for a piece of equipment they got for $10.
The golden days for service manuals are over because service manuals don't exist anymore.
I refuse to pay for manuals, why should I scan mine and give them free as I have always done for some ingrate to then sell it on ebay.That's what the FREE manual respository websites are for, upload your obscure manual to make it available to the masses for free.
I refuse to pay for manuals, why should I scan mine and give them free as I have always done for some ingrate to then sell it on ebay.That's what the FREE manual respository websites are for, upload your obscure manual to make it available to the masses for free.
I have always scanned what manuals I have and given them freely, I have even seen one or two then being sold against my wishes on ebay.............Well you bought that upon yourself.
I was not trolling anyone thank you. I have always scanned what manuals I have and given them freely, I have even seen one or two then being sold against my wishes on ebay, it rankles and annoys me that people who will offer help to save a collection will then suddenly decide hey why shouldn't you pay for what I got free in the understanding i got them for nothing to save them for others to have freely.
However it seems Ebaman is no longer online, links and some hunting points to a total loss of that archive by fire. A real shame.
Preserving our technical legacy was Ebaman's motto and while it's honourable to do the same with this Baltimore resource how can we ensure it's safe for decades to come? :-//
Sounds like the Jason Scott already has some connection with Archive.org. The short term issue is sorting, hauling everything off and storing it until they can come up with a plan for archiving it.
As for burning libraries, I think someone else started doing that about, oh 2000 years ago?
I really hope they are checking printings/dates/revisions when eliminating "duplicates."I would bet money that isn't happening. (Ha ha, if I had any. But then, I'm certain I'd win the bet, so...)
:phew:However it seems Ebaman is no longer online, links and some hunting points to a total loss of that archive by fire. A real shame.
Preserving our technical legacy was Ebaman's motto and while it's honourable to do the same with this Baltimore resource how can we ensure it's safe for decades to come? :-//
What? But Ebaman is working for me, still has my account details, and saved docs going back to (quick check) at least 2007. See screenshot taken just now.
Can you please check again? If it's still inaccessible to you, that's interesting. I'll explain why, if you still can't see it.
Sounds like the Jason Scott already has some connection with Archive.org. The short term issue is sorting, hauling everything off and storing it until they can come up with a plan for archiving it.
What sorting? Primarily de-duplication, as I understand it, so they don't have to move and store as much.QuoteAnyone in the US able to think of a way someone could put a legal hold on the destruction?I can imagine various strategies, and I find all of them incredibly odious. Tearing down a building, that requires permits, those permits can be challenged or held up in various ways (whether or not they should, thats another question). Taking a bunch of manuals to the dump or recycling? The most govts in the US do about that is regulate the waste haulers and perhaps mandate pricing that favors recycling. There is no customary intervention in day-to-day waste disposal activities. Maybe there is some judge who wouldn't laugh you out of court if you tried to bring an injunction, but your attorney would probably have to have some corrupt relationship with them. A creditor might have some standing, if the people with the manuals were behind on payments.
But really, why? A reasonable course of action seems to be playing out. Someone who cares and who is equipped and prepared to do something about it has established some rapport with the current owners of the manuals and can basically take as much as they can haul off. Any effort or expense for a legal intervention would be better directed at helping them out, and/or perhaps paying the current owners some consideration for stretching their timeline to allow more time to haul the trove away.
Yes. I think I bought a couple of manuals from them in the past. You can argue all you want but running a business requires paying customers. Paying customers requires offering a service which customers would pay money for. Going out of business means there are not enough paying customers which in turn means the service provided is no longer wanted.@TerraHertz: Did it occur to you that they are going out of business because nobody wants the manuals?Your argument is invalid, and merely demonstrates that *you* don't want them. How many people buy ebay'd old gear? Did you actually look at ManualsPlus prices?
I'm only a couple of hours from Maryland. I've got access to a 42' flatbed and copious amounts of climate controlled storage. I'd be glad to take all the manuals off their hands (and scan them as a long term project).I think you should talk to Jason Scott directly via email - "jason at textfiles dot com" is what he mentions in the link. Those sound like the exact type of resources he's in need of. (I doubt you'll get to keep anything but the duplicates though.)
All the places I've seen that collect information for free don't allow it to be copied in bulk, they sit on it to make money out of it. archive.org, wikipedia, JSTOR, you name it, you can't download it.archive.org? Jason Scott works there and they certainly do allow downloading... here's a random download link I used a few weeks ago (https://archive.org/download/bitsavers_fairchilddldLinearIntegratedCircuitsDataCatalog_30443462/1973_Fairchild_Linear_Integrated_Circuits_Data_Catalog.pdf)
Yes. I think I bought a couple of manuals from them in the past. You can argue all you want but running a business requires paying customers. Paying customers requires offering a service which customers would pay money for. Going out of business means there are not enough paying customers which in turn means the service provided is no longer wanted.
I also agree with the other person about not being able to browse through their collection. That made Manualsplus invisible to Google. If they addressed that earlier they could probably have survived an extra couple of years.Yes, I agree the website was bad. More incompetence from the owner. But again, it wasn't 'lack of business' according to them. It was loss of the lease.
I'm only a couple of hours from Maryland. I've got access to a 42' flatbed and copious amounts of climate controlled storage. I'd be glad to take all the manuals off their hands (and scan them as a long term project).
I know nothing about the ins and outs of why they are closing. I have been an occasional customer over the years but postage to the UK isn't cheap. I heard about the closure and hopefully in the next week or so will arrive boxes 5 and 6 of the sale manuals. I think I might now have spent more on postage than manuals with the discount on these last boxes. Thanks Becky.
Look at the various threads, buy a Rigol and stuff anything more than 5 years old? My manuals were mostly boring, Tek 7000 stuff and similar, but ManualsPlus had originals, and I an tired of rubbish copies and it was worth the cost to buy and ship them across the pond.
This is a very common occurance now in my experience, no one is interested in older things, generally, it is all apparently on the internet.Yes, and do you know the history of fads and manias? Who can be sure the Internet is going to last forever in its current form? It's only been around what, 20 years so far. This is not sufficient basis to predict eternal availability.
I had a nice collection of electromechanical computers, mostly navigation equipment from aircraft, inertial gyros, air data computers, ground position indicators and similar. When I had to downsize it went for auction, would have got more at a scrap yard.
Similarly old books, 3rd edition Britannica, a Pantologia, runs of the AJS and similar, these are now valued just for the plates they contain, maps are best, the plate of yet another bridge is used to light the fire. It has taken me years to to actually accept that the things I spent so much time and money on acquiring are now worthless.
I have ST412 working disc drives, no interest, scrapped, similarly with much other computer stuff. No one now has the space to store this stuff, and museums don't seem interested either.
I am pleased that I bought the manuals I did from MP, and they will be used and appreciated. But they will also go for recycling when I die.How soon will that be do you think? Any chance you could put me down in your will, to take whatever techno-relics you still have? I'm totally serious, please PM me if you'll consider it. I'm 60 now, will be around a while yet. See http://everist.org/NobLog/ (http://everist.org/NobLog/) I have a lot of Tek 7000 series stuff, but mostly not yet recommissioned due to the sequencing of getting my workshop set up.
what is a 7T11? In the end I had a choice, pay MP for the manuals and postage, or keep that money in my savings account. All the others who complain about the manuals being dumped perhaps should have put some money where their mouth is, and bought a couple of thousand $ worth when they could. I did.
QuoteAll the places I've seen that collect information for free don't allow it to be copied in bulk, they sit on it to make money out of it. archive.org, wikipedia, JSTOR, you name it, you can't download it.archive.org? Jason Scott works there and they certainly do allow downloading...
QuoteAll the places I've seen that collect information for free don't allow it to be copied in bulk, they sit on it to make money out of it. archive.org, wikipedia, JSTOR, you name it, you can't download it.archive.org? Jason Scott works there and they certainly do allow downloading...
can you send them 300tb of hard drives and a cheque ? not for any of them.
Sounds like the Jason Scott already has some connection with Archive.org. The short term issue is sorting, hauling everything off and storing it until they can come up with a plan for archiving it.
What sorting? It's already neatly sorted and indexed. The hard part would be preserving that during a move.
Anyone in the US able to think of a way someone could put a legal hold on the destruction?
QuoteI really hope they are checking printings/dates/revisions when eliminating "duplicates."I would bet money that isn't happening. (Ha ha, if I had any. But then, I'm certain I'd win the bet, so...)
Jason posted some photos today: https://twitter.com/textfiles/with_replies (https://twitter.com/textfiles/with_replies)
That's a pretty good effort, but why do they seem to be leisurely reading through the manuals...? I was expecting more "grab and go", with people pulling armfuls of them out at a time and stuffing them into boxes, since the priority here seems to be to get them out of the place ASAP. All the sorting, duplicate culling, etc. can come later, after they've been moved out...
can you send them 300tb of hard drives and a cheque ? not for any of them.
QuoteI really hope they are checking printings/dates/revisions when eliminating "duplicates."I would bet money that isn't happening. (Ha ha, if I had any. But then, I'm certain I'd win the bet, so...)
You guys need to watch what you say. Becky is aware of this thread and had been following it.
As for duplicate sorting, according to Becky, Jason and others have been hard at work.
towards their USD $10,000 a month building lease.
Is there anyone from this forum who "has boots on the ground"? I mean is there anyone here who is there? I have a somewhat difficult time trying to figure out what is going on and if there is someone with boots on the ground, I could concentrate on their comments.
Manuals Plus Announces Pending Closure
on 04.27.2015
Manuals Plus owner Nick Dawson confirmed plans to shutter the Maryland-based test and measurement equipment manual distributor in a phone interview Friday. He says the closing of this division will not affect the operations of parent company Ridge Equipment Co. Inc.
Dawson says the company’s warehouse lease will be up in June, and factors like the increasing availability of PDF versions of the manuals contributed to the decision.
He explained that the current building has 1.6 linear miles of shelving, all filled with inventory. In order to avoid throwing them out, Manuals Plus says it will accept best offers for the manuals, offering an opportunity to stock up on these publications at a discount. Send queries to sales@manualsplus.com — specific requests will be given priority.
Dawson noted his affection for radio clubs and encouraged operators to contact Manuals Plus with requests for manuals.
Additionally, the company will host a warehouse sale in the first week of June, prior to its planned closure at the end of the month.
From the Manuals Plus website:
"As many of you may have heard, Manuals Plus is closing its doors.
We have made an agreement with The Internet Archive to donate our entire library to their collection. You can find information about them at (https://archive.org/about/). "
Hopefully, this really means the entire library rather than whatever Jason manages to save.
We have made an agreement with The Internet Archive to donate our entire library to their collection.
IS DIGITAL THE ANSWER?
"There is, out in the world, not among professionals, but among ordinary people, there is the general notion that not only has everything been preserved, but that is all available on the internet or on DVD through Netflix or whatever. Even there might be 40 or 50 thousand DVDs out there, this is only a very small proportion of all of the films that have been produced." -- Jan-Christopher Horak - Director, UCLA Film & Television Archive
"Media is fragile. Film is fragile, it doesn't last forever. Videotape is even more fragile. And digital bits. We haven't figured out a way to save digital bits beyond a few years. If you collect material that is digital, you have to keep migrating to the next generation carrier. You know what happens to all your floppy disks right now, what happened to your Zip drive. So, by its very nature, moving images and all sort of time-based media are indeed ephemeral" Rick Prelinger - Prelinger Archives
"Of course, we had 35mm film we've had for 115 years. We've had digitallity now for maybe, lets stretch it, maybe 20 years? In 20 years we've gone through 30 different formats. So every 18 months the industry is creating new formats that are incompatible with the previous format." - Horak
"What we discovered is that huge amounts of material were being copied to digital formats and then discarded, with the belief that the digital copies would last forever. And that's not the case. Think of the hard drive in your computer or DVD or CDs that you have, and how fragile they are. And how they can fail, and how you can lose data. How anybody who works with computers always advises people to back up their content and so on, and things that we all hardly ever do. So, we do use digital technologies, but it is with great care." Patrick Loughney - Chief, Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation
"Digital is part of the problem now. It's not part of the solution. We're still preserving films on film because film is going to last so much longer, and be useful for so much longer than any digital file will be." -- Mike Pogorezelski - Director, Academy Film Archive
"The acetate, or polyester film which is what we use these days in the analog world, if it is stored properly, cold and dry, we know through tests that have been done, it will last 500, 600, 700 years, maybe longer. Through nothing but passive storage. Very cold, very dry, put it on the shelf. And we know in a couple hundred years, we can pull it out and it will still look good." - Horak
https://youtu.be/3TEgrdAlofk?t=27m13s
We are fools and history tends to repeat itself...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria)
Digital media will not last forever. And the world's knowledge will not necessarily be backed up. Certainly won't last as long as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Rosetta Stone.
I'm pretty sure the copyright act allows copying of full publications if a copy is not available from the publisher in a reasonable time.We have made an agreement with The Internet Archive to donate our entire library to their collection.
well, until some troll tells the IA that the manuals are copyright and It can't publish them, at which point they'll be well locked away out of reach as their own property. Kickstarter perhaps ?
We are fools and history tends to repeat itself...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria)
...
Digital media will not last forever. And the world's knowledge will not necessarily be backed up. Certainly won't last as long as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Rosetta Stone.
However I do have every SERVICE MANUAL to every model of AWA Fisk radio ever made. Not only the schematic, but alignment, assembly procedures and parts lists. I suspect it is the only complete collection in the world. In perfect condition and not available digitally. These are locked up off site with a secure documents company for safe keeping.
Remember the great fire of Alexandria...
I'm pretty sure the copyright act allows copying of full publications if a copy is not available from the publisher in a reasonable time.We have made an agreement with The Internet Archive to donate our entire library to their collection.
well, until some troll tells the IA that the manuals are copyright and It can't publish them, at which point they'll be well locked away out of reach as their own property. Kickstarter perhaps ?
In the US, at least, there are insufficient provisions for abandoned or orphan works. Moreover, the terms of copyright are so absurdly long due to the lobbying efforts of Disney that I suspect that most test equipment manuals are, unequivocally, still covered by copyright.
In the case of test equipment manuals. the existing public archives have mostly been left alone by copyright holders. I guess it's possible that the involvement of the high-visibility Internet Archive would change that.
The holder of the copyright to the various Heathkit manuals certainly hasn't left the public archives alone!Most people think that copyright has lapsed on Heathkit manuals. There are plenty of sites that host them.
Many of the B&K manuals also seem to be unobtainium.Has B+K ever threatened an archive site?
And how about using a collective storage medium? Think about peer-to-peer networks. Music you won't find in any (online) shop can still be obtained from peer-to-peer networks.We are fools and history tends to repeat itself...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria)
Digital media will not last forever. And the world's knowledge will not necessarily be backed up. Certainly won't last as long as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Rosetta Stone.
Digital media can be copied and backed up and converted between formats and storage types and etc etc etc indefinitely. The data is finally separate from the medium, as it should be. It has way more chance at longevity than paper.
Anyone who thinks digital media can't last thinks "digital media" is a filing cabinet full of CD-Rs.
Sorry for the necroposting, but I picked up today two excellent quality manuals from another company (Tucker Electronics, also available at eBay as teoutlet) and the owner Jim said they will not be around for long anymore due to personal reasons. It is sad to see his huge collection go to the dustbin, so hopefully someone knows someone that could salvage them...
Last time I talked to him, he was holding out for $10/manual, so salvage wasn't really an option. Did he change his mind about that?As I don't have the means to pursue this myself, I didn't discuss this with him.
Sorry for the necroposting, but I picked up today two excellent quality manuals from another company (Tucker Electronics, also available at eBay as teoutlet) and the owner Jim said they will not be around for long anymore due to personal reasons. It is sad to see his huge collection go to the dustbin, so hopefully someone knows someone that could salvage them...Ask Jason Scott, the same guy who rescued the manuals discussed previously in this thread.
Oh no, not teoutlet too.
Oh no, not teoutlet too.
I just got another manual from teoutlet.
yes, I know but how many of those that now need to be rescued will suddenly become only available by ebay purchase !