Bad choice of words on my part. I meant it wasn't
in electronic
form. As you point out, it's tempting to toss the docs because
of their bulk, and has others have shown on this list, the docs
are the first thing to have disappeared when they come to
rescue a system.
There are some efforts I've heard of which involve scanning in the
old documentation... that will be terrabytes of .GIFs, I would
imagine... Let's hope that those of us who have any documentation
keep it forever, or will forward it (if someone decides to exit
the arena of classic computing) to one of those who are still
maintaining sets...
Someone mentioned the old DEC fiches, and Megan (gee,
only the
Gee... I'm honored... (someone else used to refer to me as *The*
Megan... :-)
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?
Unfortunately, those tapes were, to my knowledge, temporary for
the time it took to make the fiche. If they were saved, they
went to fire storage... and I have to say that once something
from DEC went to fire storage, I've never seen
anyone who could
get it back... I know, I've tried a few times over the years
for
some things... (So what is the use of fire storage, if all it is
is a black hole?)
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry
zk3.dec.com |
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world.std.com |
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