HP 2640 character set generation manual in the UK

[Dave Wade]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Christian
> Corti via cctalk
> Sent: 08 November 2017 08:56
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: HP 2640 character set generation manual in the UK
> 
> On Fri, 3 Nov 2017, CuriousMarc wrote:
> > The link below is from the computer museum in Cambridge, UK, which
> > seems to have a copy of an HP 2640 terminal manual I am looking for.
> > Is anyone from that museum on the list? Does any of the UK members
> know them?
> > http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/14373/HP-2640-Series-
> Character-
> > Set-Ge
> > neration/
> >
> > Does anyone on the list have a copy of this manual?
> 
> I not only have a copy, I have the original of the manual (along with tons
of
> other stuff like microcode listings etc. for the 264x series).
> I will scan it these days and make it online - for free in contrast to the
> Cambridge guys :-)
> 
> Christian

With respect , you can view it in person for the price of admission. They
also say that limited resources mean they have no timescale for this.

In the UK being a small museum is a challenge. Many years ago "the
government" said that any museum that was government supported had to be
free to enter, otherwise their funding would stop. 

As a result, the BIG museums such as the Science Museum became free to enter
and get government funding.

This puts smaller museums in a very difficult situation. They don't get any
funding, non is available, so realistically they have to charge for
admission, which means they have problems competing for footfall.

At least they have made their collection index available so you can see what
they have, and you can go and see it on request. 

Contrast this with The National Museum of Computing (which is not nationally
funded) or the Science Museum Group (which is nationally funded). Both have
large numbers of objects which are not catalogued and/or not available to
see. 

So I know that the Science Museum Group has a set of PDP8 diagnostic tapes,
I have seen and photographed them, but they are not available to view, less
still read...

Dave