This is one of those things that has bugged me for a while - figured I'd see if anyone
else noticed. Many documents on Bitsavers are missing the blank pages.
Now, this isn't much of an issue if you are just reading them on a computer, but they
cause havoc when you go to print them out. Call me a tree-killer, but when I'm working
on a complicated machine, and find the manual on Bitsavers, I like to print it out,
three-hole punch it, and put it in a binder - this way I can work from it, add notes to
it, etc, as I restore/repair a device.
With blank pages (i.e. the backs of the last page of a section) missing, when you print
double-sided, it throws off the page layout. Sometimes this results in a two-page diagram
being printed on the front and back of a single sheet of paper. Or the exploded diagram
and the parts list on opposite sides of a page.
So, my solution is to go through the document ahead of time on the computer, page by page,
and write down the page ranges that are contiguous, and printing odd numbers of pages
together to recreate the blank backs at the end of the section. For example, for the KSR35
Teletype Tech manual, volume 1:
1-3 (single sided), 4-14, 15-26, 27 (reduce), 28-66, 67-113, 114-122, 123-157, 158-164,
165-183, 184-192, 193-217.
Maybe this is just me being a bit obsessive - but I'm sure someone else has run into
this. I'm just wondering - were these blank pages removed intentionally for some
reason? Did the scanning software automatically ignore them? Or am I the only vintage
computer geek out there who owns a massive duplexing laser printer?
-Ian