27 Aug
1998
27 Aug
'98
4:22 p.m.
Someone mentioned the old DEC fiches, and Megan (gee, only the
most famous are known by their first names) said something
about the way they were produced with specially formatted text
that printed direct to fiche film. Has DEC liberated these
docs in pure electronic text form, or even RUNOFF form, or
whatever system they used to typeset the original docs?
- John
The program listing fiche were (I used to do IBM fiche at Bell & Howell
Microphoto while working my way through tech school before DEC Field
Service) probably generated via a COM machine which took tapes with
print file spools and generated microfilm.
I figure DEC printed the listings to file and then from file to tape and
then sent the tapes out for repro as fiche. The maintenance manuals
are shot by cameras which actually take a picture of each page
to generate the master film for repro.
DEC used blue (diazo) microfiche for their stuff, while IBM used mostly
silver film images (much more expensive -- but they never got clear from
exposure to sunlight). I almost wore out the DEC TU77 maint. manuals
fixing tape drives.
I wonder if DEC's MIS department has the tapes somewere.