Scan it all. Release it all. Set it free. (Anyone have the schematics or service manual for Yamaha C1 music computer? Yamaha doesn't.) -- Ethan O'Toole

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Marc Verdiell <marc.verdiell at gmail.com> wrote: OK, first off - don't be an asshole. You clipped off an important part of my post. Here is the original: As I said before, test equipment manual hoards are not all that rare - even big ones with thousands of manuals. You would not believe some of the basements I have been in - hams (active or not) that have shelves and shelves and shelves of test equipment manuals. The few remaining old time surplus dealers have gobs of manuals as well. Even some of the ma-and-pa two way radio or TV repair places have extremely impressive tech libraries. The stuff is out there. When someone, Jason in this case, is presented with a huge rescue effort and a severe time constraint, the first thing to do is sit down and think things in a practical manner. There is a lot to think about, but one of the big things is to prioritize the rescue with worst case scenarios. Often the worse case scenarios seem like they will happen, but in fact do not. Time constraints often loosen up. In the Manuals Plus case, Jason needs to move some 25,000 manuals (out of maybe 400,000?) in two days. As far as the whole operation is concerned, those two days are it, and whatever has not been processed and saved is doomed. The best thing to do then is to use the odds. Save the material where there is very rare, from obscure makers that turn up only very rarely. Skip the material that is mostly extremely common that can perhaps be picked up in the next job. With test equipment, that stuff would be HP, Tek, and Heath. Sure, by skipping HP (for example), a truly rare manual might get skipped (5840A, perhaps), but there is a reasonable chance it might be saved down the line. However, if HP is made a priority, saving all the common material (600 series signal generators, perhaps) might clog up the system, and when time runs out, that original 1920 manual for the Westinghouse Osiso oscilloscope ends up in the dumpster. And the chances of the next hoard having that manual? I will bet a tiny fraction of the chance of finding a manual for the 5840A. But hey, the 608A manual was saved! Add it to the pile of other 608A manuals. And, of course, if the time constraint does get lifted, either by the owner or the productivity of the crew - the HP, Tek, and Heath stuff can then be dealt with. It is not like the plan is set in stone and the manuals are condemned. I have been in the surplus business for quite a long time, and have been dealing in manuals for about 20 years (15 for test equipment, because I gave up on that stuff about 5 years ago). I have had thousands of manuals pass thru my hands. Last year I cleaned out Radio Research of their paper - a job about half the size of the Manuals Plus job. I did it alone over several months (along with a more general cleanout of the place). Before that was a hoard from a no-name surplus dealer out of Dayton, OH. Before that was the Compass technical library. Interspersed have been a lot of smaller rescues for myself and clients (like the Cyber Resources job for CHM, and the EMC/Data General tape library save for another client). While I do not really boast about this stuff (this being a rare exception), I can say I do know what the hell I am doing. -- Will