New subject: Formats for Scanned Documentation (was: Disk Drive Documents)

6 Jun 1999

We're not in a hurry, yet, so we should look for a format suitable for
everyone.  The reason document publishers like PDF is that it allows you to
view the document, print it, print excerpts, search, and so on, yet doesn't
let you extract text from it.  Of course, you can output it to PCL, convert
the PCL to BMP, convert the BMP to TIF, then run it through an OCR processor
to create clear text.  The reason I like it is that it allows me to keep the
OLD data books I have in my technical library on the shelves gathering dust
except when I want information that's not in the new ones.  I tolerate that
it only works under WINDOWS, and I tolerate that it won't process other file
formats, and I tolerate that I can't extract a quote when I need to.  It has
served me well, though, I have to admit.

The problem I see is that since the PDF is so easy to process for the
average Win95 user, even though that may not include everyone in this forum,
there's a PDF viewer for LINUX, just as there's one for various other *NIX
types.  I don't know whether ther's one  for OS8 or whatever the PDP8 users
have, but I see a potential problem when it comes to finding a "better"
tool.  There may be a tool which YOU like better, for whatever reasons, and
there may be one which I like better for whatever reasons I have, but it's
unlikely someone will host a site on which we can put this document set in
half a dozen different formats.  (BTW, there's another manual, now, i.e. the
MITSUBISHI 4894, or whatever they called their DS 8" drive back in the late
'70's.)

As for finding a "home" for this data, I think the "unofficial CP/M
site"
might be the place, though I've not yet contacted the site owner.  Many
CP/M-ers will at one time or another need this data.

In any case, I'll agree that each of us will have an approach to "using"
our
computer which may not suit someone else, and those who have a preferred
format for openly presented technical data should make their preferences
known.  The people who actually prepare the data and present it for use will
probably have the final say, though and there's no guarantee that I will
have any more to say in the final choice than you.

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell &lt;ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Sunday, June 06, 1999 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: Disk Drive Documents

...
 >
> First of all, let me say that I'm in complete agreement with your notion
> that the doc's don't have to be put out in only one format.  It's just
that
...
 > I've been so extremely satisfied (ask anyone
who knows me and they'll tell
...
 > you that's not easy!) with the PDF for
document publication that any other
...
   way simply
hadn't arrived here yet. 
PDFs might be fine for publishing a newly-created document (although I
would still prefer something where I could trivially extract any ascii
text using standard tools), but I don't see the point for a collection of
scanned images.

> With the Acrord32 program under Win95, you can print the pages you want and
...
   skip the rest,
you can search for specific words and phrases, and you can 
I think this is one of the big differences between how we use our
software. I prefer to have one program to do searching (grep). One to do
formatting (*roff, TeX, etc). Another to handle double-siding, etc. That
way, I aways use the same program from the same task.

You seem to prefer to have a single program to (say) read .pdfs and do
anything you like to them.

> print double-sided whether you have a duplex printer or not.  You can
> generate extremely good-looking documents with almost no effort.  You just
...
 > can't edit them or such, and that's fine
with me.  I've seen some truly
> terrible PDF documents, obviously scanned from bad source documents or with
...
 > a really dirty scanner, and not cleaned up as
I'd probably be inclined to do
...
 > if any of these documents turned out to be
"bad" or difficult to read. The
...
   ones I've
seen which were bad were posted PDF's of CP/M documents which I
 probably ought to be glad I could get in any form. 
This is not the point. Obviously I'd rather have the document poorly
reproduced than not at all. But if a document is only available in a
format that I can't read, it's not going to be a lot of use to me.

>
> What I would like to avoid, here, is getting in a position where we evaluate
...
 > the product on the basis of the tools used to
generate it.  I use WIndows95
...

That is not what I am doing...

However, it is helpful if documents, particularly documents about old
computers, are available to as many people as possible. This may well
mean not using the latest/greatest (proprietry) tools.

Most people here are technically knowledgeable. All of us would know how to
expand one of the standard archive formats in our OS of choice and print the
...
 individual files it contains. Most of us can install
new programs to handle
strange formats -- if they exist.

> because it's a convenient tool for doing what I do with it.  I use DOS
where
...
 > it's convenient and when I see a version of,
say, LINUX that's got current
...
 > documentation I'll look at it again too, since
there are supposed to be some
...

Eh? The documentation that comes with linux is an order of magnitude
better (at least) that that which comes with Windows...

> things that it does very handily as well.  I agree about the documentation
...
   angle, but I
don't agree that being free makes a product better.  It just 
Sorry, I wasn't clear. When I said (in private e-mail) that I am not
going to pay for the second-best when the best is free, I didn't mean
that linux was better _because_ it's free. I meant that linux happens to
be the best tool that I have yet found for the sort of work that I do.
And the fact that it's free is a bonus.

Having got the best tool, I sure am not going to pay for something that's
less useful to me...

> improves the price-performance comparison factors and helps with motivation
...
 > to try it.  I do believe that publishing the
scanned documents as completely
...
 > as possible is desirable, so that when you run
into that "see figure 8a on
...
 > page ..." you'll have that as well.  If
you only need to print sheet 14 of
...
   39, that's
what you should be able to print, not the entire document when 
A .tar.gz of scanned bitmaps allows you to do all that, in a totally
OS-independant way...

  If there were a good PCL or PostScript viewer,
widely distributed enough 
Ghostview seems to work reasonably to view postscript, and it's available
for most OSes AFAIK.

But postscript files, especially those of bitmapped images, tend to be _very
...
 large_ files... 10-20 times the size of the equivalent
.gif...

  that a substantial number of potential users
would have it at their
 disposal, that would also be useful distribution format.  If it could be
 hammered into a Word97 document, that might be a candidate.  What's 
No. Word97 (or any other Word) is even worse the pdf. At least there are
pdf viewers for other OSes. And the format is _documented_ somewhere. I
have never seen a full and complete description of a Word file. As far
as I'm concerned, such files are useless...

[Note : people who e-mail me .doc files without warning normally get a
.dvi file in return. And if they want to know what it is, they can darn
well read Volume B of 'Computers and Typesetting']

  important is that a large number of potential
users have access to the
 format that's chosen. 
What's important IMHO is that _all_ potential users can have access to
the format. And that means picking a format that is fully documented, one
that can be read on as many computers as possible.

For text, either plain ascii, or one of the many formatting/markup
languages that uses ascii source with embedded commands (TeX, html,
*roff, etc). That way, you can read it on _anything_, even an ASR33 :-)

For graphics, one of the many file formats that have proper
documentation.

 Comments and suggestions are welcome! 
The above are just suggestions. There will be no flames from me (although
I will be disapointed if I can't read them) no matter what format the
files appear in (if they appear at all). After all, if you're providing
information, you get to pick how you do it.

I just feel that cutting off some potential users is a Bad Thing.

-tony