21 Aug
2015
21 Aug
'15
5:19 p.m.
If you have some equipment surely it would reasonable
to have the
manuals for it.
How the manuals are obtained is open to debate but not if you have the
right to own them.
I would agree (although doubtless lawyers wouldn't :-)).
A problem, though is when a service or technical manual was an optioanl accessory, which
had to be paid for separately. In that case it is going to be very hard to prove you had a
right
to own it. And yet the manufacturers can no longer supply it, and you want to fix the
<whatever>.
A case in point. I have a 1980s colour graphics terminal here. The user manual was
supplied with it (and
I am pretty sure I have the original), the service manual was an option and I am pretty
sure the previous
owners never had it. But of course I need the schematics, etc to sort out an EHT fault in
it.
In this particular case there is no problem. It's a Tektronix and comes under (AFAIK)
the agreement
posted on bitsavers. And bitsavers had the 2 volumes of service manual available. So I do
not feel
there is anything wrong in this case. But for other manufacturers it could be a problem.
-tony